


You Were Cool

by SyllableFromSound



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bullying, Canon Compliant, F/F, Family, Fantasy Racism, Flashbacks, High School, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reunions, School, Teen Romance, Thank You Lesbians, be the change you want to see in the world, i had a mighty need for childhood hurloane fics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyllableFromSound/pseuds/SyllableFromSound
Summary: "And now the gun was nearly touching Sloane's stomach, but somehow, suddenly, Hurley felt like the one who was stuck. Her gaze had gotten tangled up with the thief's, and now it held there, fixed on a pair of eyes that were the green of oxidized copper. There was something naked about them, large and pleading as they glanced from under a nervous brow. The expression said what it had from the very first: Help. I'm in trouble here. Help me, Curly."After nearly seven years apart, two high school sweethearts meet up again in their old hometown, and not exactly in the way either of them would expect. HighSchool!Hurloane because someone's gotta.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hellohellohello! Apparently I'm continuing my tradition of posting exactly one (1) fanfic per fandom on this site!
> 
> As I mentioned in my tags, as much as I love the idea of Sloane meeting Hurley after becoming a famous criminal and accidentally falling passionately in love via The Thrill of the Chase, I've always really wanted to explore what it'd be like if they met when they were younger, before they had that cop-robber dynamic on top of everything else. (Plus, they're both disaster lesbians now, so can you even imagine how much worse they would be as teenagers?) That's what this fic is for! It's not a "high school AU," per se, because my intention is for it to take place in-universe, before the events of the canon. 
> 
> Uh...this'll probably be at least three chapters, given that I've already begun to write the second? I'm unsure of how long I'll continue it after that, but I'm beginning to get kind of attached to this plot, so I'll keep you updated on what I decide to do with it in the end! Regardless, please look forward to at least a couple more after this. I really appreciate you checking this fic out! Please enjoy!
> 
> P.S. Oh yeah the title is from the song "You Were Cool" by the Mountain Goats because we're all gays here amirite?

Hurley disliked nicknames. Or, rather, she was fine with nicknames so long as they weren't applied to her. They just had never boded well--in the first grade, some kid who always had dried snot on his lip liked to remind her and the rest of their class what her name sounded like when shortened to the first syllable, complete with retching noises for effect. Of course, something as childish as that wouldn't bother her these days. She couldn't always say the same of the quiet mentions of "breeder" and "stuntie" that she heard on the streets and on the bus to work. The grimy name-callers had learned their slurs as easily as their alphabets, and now they were all grown up into businessmen and tavern owners and the grocer down the street and even the occasional fellow police officer. She was a lieutenant now, and strangers no longer felt as entitled to go up and ask how many dozens of siblings she had, but the nicknames still followed her, whispers wafting out of the crowds like the foul stench of the city streets.

Anyway, she was Hurley, nothing less. She didn't especially like the idea of shortening or twisting her name into something cutesy for the convenience of others, thank you very much. That's why she'd only ever trusted one other person, outside her family anyway, to call her anything other than her given name. And that had been a very long time ago.

"Curls?" The word was a ghost, something that had been put to rest and should've stayed that way, chilling precisely because it was so familiar. "Just this one time, please. You've got to let me go."

Hurley held her gun with both hands and managed, with effort, to keep it from trembling. In front of her, the slender thief, who had been sitting crouched against the gray dust of the warehouse wall, began to tentatively rise to her feet. Her movements were stiff and slow, as though she had stumbled upon some fantastic creature that she would have hated to startle away--or some beast that would give chase if she chose to run. "Listen...if you just put the gun down, I'll--"

"What the _fuck_ , Sloane?"

Amidst the flurry of other emotions jockeying for dominance, some small part of Hurley found cruel satisfaction in making Sloane visibly flinch at the force of her voice. From behind a black mask in the form of a bird's skull, wide eyes darted constantly from the Hurley's face to the large double doors leading outside to the gun. "Okay, I know you're probably surprised and upset because this is, this is weird--"

What was the weird bit again? Was it the part where Sloane had turned up right here in Goldcliff after six years and eight months of no communication, not that anyone had been counting? Or was it the fact that, in all the scenarios that Hurley had envisioned for this particular reunion, all the fantasies she'd nurtured in the dark warm silence between lights-out and sleep, somehow, she'd never quite imagined meeting her old flame only to find that she was the actual, literal fucking Raven?

Hurley set her jaw and mustered up some professionalism. "Face the wall."

Sloane took a step backwards so that her back was flattened against the wall, but she did not turn around. "Hurley, come on, you can't--"

"Against the wall, I said." Hurley moved forward.

"You're not even going to talk to me?"

"Failure to cooperate--"

"Curls."

And now the gun was nearly touching Sloane's stomach, but somehow, suddenly, Hurley felt like the one who was stuck. Her gaze had gotten tangled up with the thief's, and now it held there, fixed on a pair of eyes that were the green of oxidized copper. There was something naked about them, large and pleading as they glanced from under a nervous brow. The expression said what it had said from the very first: _Help. I'm in trouble here. Help me, Curly._

* * *

_"Hey, why don't you leave her alone?"_

_And just like that, Hurley found herself reckoning with two sharp gazes that bore clean holes through her, pins in an insect specimen. The pair of elves towered over her. She looked up at them and did an excellent job of not visibly shivering._

_"This isn't any of your business, midge," sneered the one with silvery hair. Hurley recognized her vaguely from school--she was maybe three grade levels ahead. "Go crawl back into your shithole."_

_Hurley's words pushed past the thickness coating her throat. "Not until you let her go."_

_Another of the elves placed one hand on her hip and fixed Hurley with a pupilless, pearl-hard stare. Her other hand was outstretched and wrapped around a short mahogany wand bearing the sheen of fresh polish. It pointed towards a girl in black, suspended in the air, held up against the brick facade of the building by invisible wires. Dark blood had dried into a crust on her skin, stretching from beneath her hairline to her chin. A brighter red still dripped from her nose and into her gaping mouth as she stared at Hurley._

_"Why do you even care?" asked the girl with the wand. Hurley swallowed. Admittedly, that was a great question. The answer was momentarily lost to her as she felt herself trapped under the shadow of the looming elves._

_She remembered when she glanced up at the battered one, whose eyes were wide, out of incredulity or pleading or both. Right. No backing off, not this time. "Look, just cut the bullshit before I call the police. She's had enough."_

_A slicing smirk. "You think so, huh?" She gave the wand a flick, and the bloodied half-elf slammed backwards into the brick again, with a strange gasp that might have been a cry had the breath not been knocked out of her lungs._

_And that's when a familiar heat began to rise up from Hurley's neck and into her cheeks, tingling the skin there like pinpricks. Unbearable energy that needed to be expelled from her body. The same feeling that she'd had when she was younger and saw other kids catching lizards just to pull off their wriggling tails. The same fever she'd felt whenever any of her siblings had come to harm in the school hallways. When she was a child, it was the kind of indignation that would cause angry tears to burn at the corners of her eyes, furious with her powerlessness to stop it all. Now she knew better ways of dealing with it than crying. Any apprehension she might have still felt was drowned out by the sound of blood coursing through her ears. Because, really, who the fuck were they to think they could just beat on someone all they wanted? Who the fuck were they?_

_Hurley stepped towards them. "Seriously, I told you to fuck off."_

_Up until now, the aggressors had regarded Hurley with unimpressed glances through half-lidded eyes. Now, seeing the halfling come toward them, their expressions turned to momentary surprise, which hardened into threatening glares as they turned to face her directly. As Hurley had hoped, the one with the wand, now distracted, let her arm fall. The girl that she had been holding up dropped to the ground with a grunt._

_"What are you going to do about it, stuntie?"_

_As the pair advanced towards her, Hurley looked behind them to lock eyes with the kid staggering to her feet._ Come on, _she thought._ I helped you, now you help me. We can fight them if it's two against two. Come over here with me.

_The blood from the girl's forehead skirted the corners of her wide, wild eyes. Her gaze darted away from Hurley's twice, glancing at the path leading to the alleyway. Then--gods, she was quick--her feet slapped lightly against the pavement until she had disappeared behind the building._

_Hurley hadn't noticed how much faith she'd had in that girl's good will until she was staring at the empty space where she had once stood. She hadn't realized how much she had been depending on this bruised stranger to stick around for her, to repay Hurley's act of generosity. Something cold sank like a stone to the bottom of her stomach._

_She was almost too distracted to notice the silver-haired elf's fist out of the corner of her eye. Instinctively, she blocked the blow with her upper arm, then, like her sensei had taught her, used her free hand to land a punch in the stomach. The girl stumbled back, perhaps more out of surprise than pain, which gave Hurley a moment to turn and see the other elf coming up behind her. She spun and provided a nice kick to the shin._

_Nothing in her life had ever felt better than the blood drumming in her temples, reminding her every moment of just how alive she was even as others tried to destroy her. She never realized how much she craved the adrenaline until it was coursing through her, and suddenly, for once, she felt just as dangerous and overpowering as the world that she faced. She was high on excitement and fear. And yet never before had she been so sharply aware, attuned to every sense and every movement around her. She tried more complex moves in order to fend off the elves, those that she'd only seen performed by the highest-ranking students in the dojo, because she knew that right now, with the way her body and mind were working as one, that she would be a match for any of them. She just kept moving, never wanting to stop, because to stop would be to feel life less, and she never wanted to let go of this rush._

_That lasted for all of about fifteen seconds. In her eagerness, she forgot to watch her back, and so was caught entirely off-guard by the blast from one of the elves' wands that knocked her on her belly. Before she could stand up again, there was a foot against her spine, holding her to the ground. "You're gonna wish you'd quit while you were ahead, stuntie."_

_She might have answered if her lips weren't covered in grit from the street._

* * *

_Hurley would have said that she felt like kicking herself, but she'd taken quite enough kicks for one day._

_She waited until the elves were gone, their laughter fading into the distance, and lay on the pavement for some time after that too. Then, with a hiss of pain, she sat up slowly._

_Stupid, she thought. Stupid for screwing up in that fight, stupid for getting cocky, stupid for just assuming that girl would help her stick it to the elves, stupid for getting involved once again in shit that was none of her business._

_"Hey."_

_Hurley froze, then turned around to face the direction from which the voice had come._

_And there was the girl in black, who had not yet washed the spots of blood from her shirt._

_Hurley looked at her with a dull irritation. "Well, you're welcome," she said._

_To her credit, the half-elf appeared rightfully abashed, with her ears dropped low and her hand absently rubbing the back of her neck. "I...that was...pretty incredible, what you did for me."_

_Hurley shrugged and looked at the ground. "Just looked like you needed help, that's all."_

_At that, the corner of the girl's mouth twitched downward like it had been tugged by a string. "Well...thanks. You didn't have to." That last bit was spoken in a tone firm enough to border aggravation. She took another few steps forward and her brow slowly furrowed. "Gods, they really fucked you up."_

_Hurley looked back up at her with narrowed eyes. "It might've gone better if I'd had some help."_

_The girl cast her eyes down to the sidewalk for a moment, then looked back up at Hurley. "Well, I did come back to see if you were alright after all that."_

_"I'm not dead, if that counts."_

_"I can at least help you clean up, if you need. I've got bandages and stuff in my bag."_

_"I could go do that at home, too."_

_"I mean, sure, but you don't have to."_

_Hurley paused, glancing at her sideways for a few moments. Then she nodded, briefly._

_The girl walked over and began to sit on the asphalt. Halfway down, though, she stopped and looked up abruptly, as though she'd remembered something. "Um...name's Sloane, by the way."_

_"Just Sloane?"_

_A small shrug and a slow but easy smirk. "The one-name aesthetic suits me, don't you think?"_

_"If you insist."_

_"And you?"_

_"Hurley."_

_"Just Hurley?"_

_"Just Hurley."_

_"I like it." She smiled and began rustling around in her bag._

_"What are you looking for?" Hurley asked._

_Sloane's hand, wrapped around the clear glass neck of a bottle, emerged from the tote. "Vodka." When she got no response, she explained, "Have to disinfect the cuts somehow."_

_Hurley blinked at her several times._

_"Kidding!" She pulled out the bottle with a flourish, holding it high. "No, it's an over-the-counter healing potion. I haven't gotten quite that bad yet."_

_Hurley couldn't quite gather enough dignity to prevent herself from snorting at that. After a moment, she accepted the bottle while Sloane continued to rummage in her bag. She took out a wrinkled but clean cloth, wetted it with her water bottle, and then began to move it toward Hurley's face._

_Hurley leaned back from her slightly. "Uh...what are you doing?"_

_Sloane paused, then shrugged as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You got some blood on the side of your head. Figured it'd be easier for me to clean you up than for you to do it yourself, since we've got no mirrors out here." There was a coolness and composure to her voice. Hurley could not relate._

_"Okay?" she answered slowly, raising one eyebrow in Sloane's direction. The half-elf reached forward to rub Hurley's temple gently and scrub away the grime, the handkerchief damp and cool against her skin. Every part of her suddenly felt a little shivery, in fact. Sloane's face was inches from hers, and that's when Hurley was hit from behind by the realization that she was beautiful. Well, of course she was beautiful. The Fey tend to be that way. But the pair of full-blooded elves back there were beautiful in the way gems are beautiful, all gleam and sharp edges from their pronounced cheekbones to their glinting eyes. This one had a golden tinge to her cheeks, as though fragments of sun had become trapped beneath her russet skin. Her complexion had the look of the clouds at sundown, which almost glowed golden. There was a softness to her expression even with her developing black eye, though that might have been because she still felt apologetic. A swath of smooth hair swung free at her mid-back._

Oh my gods, stop.

_"Anyway, uh, thanks for this," Hurley mumbled quickly, taking the cloth from Sloane's hands and wiping at her warm face with it. "Seems like you come prepared for shit like this."_

_A devilish, one-sided smirk immediately crossed her features. "I've got to be."_

_Hurley tried not to notice the way that Sloane was starting to lean in, how she could smell the iron in the blood on her shirt. "You make a habit of getting beat up?"_

_"Not really. I make a habit of going fast and being completely incorrigible, which means sometimes I'm the one beating me up."_

_Hurley laughed softly again and then began to push herself up off the ground. A couple of large and darkening bruises on her upper arms made the task unpleasant, but fortunately she would have to issue walking home. She'd skinned her knees when they had knocked her down the first time, but she'd spent practically her whole childhood with scabs on her legs. She barely registered an injury like that nowadays. "Are you good to walk home?"_

_"Why wouldn't I be?"_

_"You looked like you were limping a little, that's all."_

_"Nah, I don't need any help. Really."_

_Hurley shrugged. "I mean, I didn't say you needed help. Just, I dunno, it might be nice to walk to the bus stop together at least. Anyway, it'll be dark soon. Neither of us should be walking back alone."_

_"I hang out by myself at night all the time," Sloane said a little dismissively, though she was already following Hurley, who suddenly noticed her own heartbeat, as it had gotten just a little bit harder and a little more eager at the realization that they'd be walking together._

_"It's good that you're here, anyway. It'll be good to hear your side of the story when I call the police and--"_

_"You are_ not _gonna call GCPD."_

_She turned to find that Sloane had stopped in her tracks. She looked affronted, somehow, like Hurley had just told her that leather-on-leather was a tacky look (it was, kind of, but damn if she didn't make tacky work for her). "Uhhh...yeah I am? Two people just beat us both to hell and deserve to be punished for it 'cause that's what laws are for?"_

_"'That's what laws are for'...damn, what are you, a narc?"_

_"Maybe someday."_

_"What's that supposed to mean?"_

_With an unwavering stare and a practiced evenness, she answered, "I'm going to be a cop one day," and then continued to watch unfaltering as she waited for the response, which was sure to be either outright denial, laughter, or a condescending "good-luck-with-that-sweetie" smile._

_Sloane went for the second option, her momentary seriousness dissolving. "Pfft! I never would have pegged you as the type, Hurley!"_

_Hurley rolled her eyes. "Whatever, forget I said anything. Find your own fucking way home."_

_"Hey, come on, I didn't say you couldn't!" She heard Sloane trotting up behind her as she started to walk away. "It's just...you seem so nice. You really wanna waste it all on the fucking police department?"_

_For a moment, Hurley was too busy asking herself why she'd felt a surge of delight at being called ''nice." Then she managed to process the question. "Look, there's been corruption in the militia and it's a fucking mess in a lot of ways, but someone's got to make changes and do it from the inside out. I'm going to do it that way. I'll be a police chief and fix this damn city."_

_Sloane blinked calmly. "You're pretty cool."_

_"Thanks."_

_"But also kind of stupid."_

_Hurley whipped around, daring the other girl to look her in the eyes the next time she spoke. Sloane obliged, her gaze nonchalant, and Hurley both hated and envied how casual she could be about something so important. "You can't change systems like that on your own, Hurley. You're just gonna end up as a martyr or as one of the people you were fighting against in the first place. You don't survive by resisting."_

_"I don't accept that."_

_Sloane shrugged and tossed her hair back carelessly. "Well, that's not to say I don't try to get some cheap shots in when I can. Like with those couple of asshole full-bloodeds today. You wanna know what they were beating me up for?"_

_"Can't imagine it was any good reason," Hurley muttered darkly._

_"Awhile back they were saying it was no wonder I'm taking blow-off classes because half-bloods only have half a brain, so for the past month I've been pulling week-old stuff out of the dumpster behind the butcher's and sticking it in their lockers. They only just figured out it was me."_

_This time, it was Hurley's turn to lose her composure to laughter. She felt it bubbling up out of her, unstoppable, so that she doubled over and nearly tripped as she walked as she imagined a pair of prim elves finding their textbooks covered in maggoty bacon fat. "Sloane, oh my gods, that's terrible!"_

_"Isn't it?" She sounded proud._

_"That's why you don't want the cops to know what happened, huh?"_

_"I mean, tell 'em if you want for your own sake, but don't involve me. I don't want them asking questions. I'm not brave like you."_

_"Bravery's a choice, not a trait." After a moment, Hurley shrugged and said more sheepishly, "At least that's what my mom used to tell me."_

_"God, you're adorable." Sloane's nose wrinkled as she laughed softly. "Not 'cause you're small, just 'cause of, like, who you are as a person."_

_Despite the rapid cooling of the desert in the evening, Hurley felt a heat inside her rise steadily, and she realized suddenly that she was nervous. There was something beautiful about the way Sloane was outlined boldly against the reddish sunset sky and the way the bruise on the side of her mouth shifted as she grinned._

* * *

Hurley never lowered her gun. She never so much as took pressure off the trigger. All she did was take two big steps back.

"You have thirty fucking seconds."

And that was that. Sloane stared for a split second and then sped out of the back exit of the warehouse without looking back. Hurley waited the promised half-minute before giving chase, though, as expected, the head-start was enough to ensure that the Raven would slip away. And for that whole half-minute, and for the rest of the long night and hazy morning following, she wondered why she kept fighting for someone who only knew how to run away.


	2. Chapter 2

Sloane stared at the concrete thirty feet beneath her and concluded that this was idiotic beyond all fucking belief.

Heights were almost never a problem. She was the Raven, for the gods' sake--routinely scaling buildings so quickly that she might as well have wings, or so they said. She had the callouses on the pads of her hands to prove it. And yet, here she was, standing on a ledge with the streets spinning slowly beneath her and more than a twinge of nausea. She leaned against the side of the building and felt the rough surface of the brick dig into her back, stippling her skin with tiny indentations.

She didn't know why she was worrying. Hurley had had a prime opportunity to arrest her, literally had her up against a wall, and she had let her go instead. That was enough of a guarantee that she hadn't changed. Not that Sloane was so surprised. Her loyalty had always run deep as marrow.

Of course, that brought up the question of how loyal she felt to her job.

She took a breath that trembled in her chest. Then she thought, _Well, fuck it,_ which was what she usually thought right before making major decisions.

The first time Sloane knocked on the bedroom window, she saw Hurley sit upright in bed at once, shaken from a deep sleep. With the second knock a moment later, the halfling turned to look outside and, upon seeing Sloane, widened her bloodshot eyes in recognition that transitioned seamlessly to rage. Her teeth gritted behind pursed lips, she threw off her covers and marched over to unlock the window.

Sloane felt a weight lift from her. She had half-expected Hurley to follow protocol and buzz her fellow cops on the spot. Instead, she was going to let Sloane in. Sure, she was angry, but that was okay. Sloane knew a thing or two about dealing with angry Hurley.

She slipped into Hurley's apartment the moment that the window had opened enough for her to do so. In the face of Hurley's ire, she kept smiling--a dumb smile, probably, one that was too wide and not befitting this bizarre situation, but she couldn't help it. Hurley was here. Seeing her solid and real just a few feet away provided a force of relief nearly powerful enough to sweep Sloane off her feet. Regardless of what else happened now, she felt the overwhelming sensation that everything would ultimately be fine. Hurley had always ensured that.

"Curls," she breathed in a too-loud whisper. "Gods, you're...you're actually here. I'm so--"

Click.

It happened in an instant. Sloane felt something cool on her wrist, and by the time that she registered the fact that it was a handcuff, she had already been chained to the bedpost. Hurley never once took her eyes off her.

Sloane blinked, hard, as though doing so would kick her brain into high gear so it could process what just happened. "Hey, uh--"

"Sit the fuck down."

Sloane sat the fuck down.

For several minutes, Hurley paced the length of her small room in silent agitation. Now and then, she would shake her head or curse under her breath. Sloane's eyes never left her, tracing and retracing her path across the floor, while dread rose up from her gut and into her throat like bile. So this was it, then. She could already see the lattices of steel in front of her, the multitude of cages that she would know. The one inside the cops' transport wagon, the holding cell at the station, the prison where they'd fasten to her ankle an enchanted cuff to keep her from crossing the building threshold. She felt the cold metal of cell walls against her skin as they closed in around her to squeeze her down into nothing, could already feel the squeeze of her fast-beating heart--

Hurley whirled on her heel without warning and faced her, eyes hard. "I'm gonna give you two minutes to explain what in the goddamn hell you're doing here, or I swear I'm taking you in."

Sloane wasted several seconds of those precious two minutes staring in disbelief, then spent longer trying to come up with some response. She had known that this moment would come, one way or another, when she was asked why here and why now. Up until now, she had had a number of reasons for returning to Goldcliff, each of which had seemed sensible and convincing in her head. Now, all her answers sounded weak and impractical, or else like half-truths. _Because I have a way to make money here that I wouldn't have anywhere else. Because I needed a change. Because I'm running. Because I'm a walking disaster and you're the only thing that's ever even slightly brought me down to earth._

"Because I missed you."

"Ha!" Hurley's laugh was a punch in the face, short and harsh and entirely devoid of humor. "You missed me, huh? And you've only had, what, like, almost seven years when you could have told me how much you missed me?"

"I know, I know, but listen, I--"

"I was waiting, you asshole!" She was shouting, suddenly, and the sound seemed magnified in the comparative quiet of the night. "I waited every goddamn day for something from you! Some stupid fucking postcard would've been enough, I didn't give a shit, because all I needed was to know where you were and that you were alright. You wanna know how pathetic it was? I checked the mailbox three times a day for the whole year after you left. For that whole year. And my mom had to stop me from checking it even more. And you could've told me any time you liked how much you missed me, but you never did. You never did, and I couldn't--" She faltered for the first time since she had begun to speak. One hand flew up to her hair, grasping fistfuls of the disheveled ginger locks. The other she held out in front of her, palm up, as though she were bearing something for Sloane to see. "And I couldn't _do_ anything about it! I had nothing! So don't you fucking come in here and tell me you missed me!"

She spun around and slammed her hands onto her tiny dresser. Sloane sat unmoving. She felt cold, which had nothing to do with the night air coming in through the open window and everything to do with the chill that seemed to emanate from her core, turning her limbs rigid. She watched Hurley from behind as the halfling gripped the dresser, her knuckles turning white and shaking with anger. But she could also see Hurley's face in the mirror from where she sat, the way she bit her lip and the way she forcefully blinked away the wetness in her shining brown eyes.

"Well," Sloane said after an eternity, and shocked herself with her ability to speak at all. "I missed you enough to come back even when I thought you might arrest me."

"Not my fault there's a price on your head, Raven," Hurley growled, but her fists were beginning to relax, just a little.

After a beat, Sloane decided that that was enough of an incentive for her to go on. "I also, uh..."

"What?"

"I..." She sighed and went on in the smallest voice possible, "I need help."

Hurley still didn't turn around, but Sloane saw her reflection shift in an instant. The furrow in her brow and the lines on her forehead melted away as her eyes widened. Her soft lips parted slightly. "Wow," she breathed at last.

Sloane swallowed hard, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. She stared at swirls in the panel of the hardwood floor. "So...GCPD, huh."

"I'm a lieutenant now."

"Never thought you'd actually do it." Hurley whipped around, her mouth already open to protest, but Sloane went on, "Calm down. I didn't mean I never thought you could. Shit, you're the one who managed to corner me the other day, not those other hacks, right? I just didn't think you'd...choose to."

"Hmph...I made up my mind I was gonna do it awhile ago." And she was nothing if not stubborn.

"How's the whole 'changing Goldcliff from the inside out' thing been working out so far?"

The halfling glared at her sideways. "I've only been among the higher-ranking officers for a bit. Change takes a long time."

"That wasn't the question."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the only one here who's made questionable career choices."

_So you admit that it's questionable._ Judging by the way Hurley clenched, it was probably wiser not to say that.

"Speaking of which, how did all of...this start? Being the Raven, I mean."

"Hey, you know me, Curls. I fucking love birds."

"Stop calling me that."

Sloane suppressed a wince of disappointment and instead casually tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand. "Alright, I will." She took a brief moment to weigh risk as she always did, then went on, cautiously, "You've still got them, though."

"What?"

"Your curls. You always said you were going to shave your head at some point. I was wondering if you had."

Hurley turned away from the mirror and bit her lip, but not before Sloane saw the beginnings of a smile begin to touch her cheeks. "I did, for a bit. It didn't feel right, though."

"Yeah?" Sloane herself began to grin, though her lips quivered slightly. "I always thought they suited you, too. They make you look like a little lamb."

Her laughter was as sudden as her anger has been moments ago. It was that same high and soft and almost twittering laugh that had always sounded surprising to Sloane when it bubbled out of Hurley's strong and stocky frame. In seven years, the sound hadn't changed. Sloane could have picked it out of a chattering crowd of thousands. "You always used to say that," Hurley chuckled.

"Well, it was always true."

"I'll turn into a ram, if you're not careful." The smirk slid from her face, then, as if she had remembered something. "Seriously, though, what...what happened?"

"Heh, I mean, I won't bore you with the details. I'm sure my two minutes are almost up anyway."

"You're way past two minutes."

"Damn! You really were keeping count! You're a cop, alright."

"Sloane, quit changing the subject."

Sloane sighed and shrugged. "There's not a whole lot to explain, honestly. I needed money, fast. This was the easiest way, I thought. Anyway, it's the only thing I'm good at."

"That's not true, first off," Hurley responded so quickly that it was a little startling. "Second, I'm pretty damn sure there are easier ways. At the very least you didn't have to go through the extra trouble of...all of this." She fingered the black feathers on Sloane's jacket collar while glancing at the bird mask that had been lain on the bed.

"Made it all myself! Come on, Hurley, you know I'm a drama gay. If I was gonna do this, I needed a good calling card." Sloane grinned. Hurley did not. Instead, she looked down for a moment and then turned away, her back to Sloane again. It became difficult to breathe, suddenly, as her throat clogged up with the things she couldn't let herself say.

"You really fucked up, you know that?" There was no rage in the voice this time. The words came out of Hurley's mouth deflated. "Why'd you leave like that?"

"Things...didn't go to plan."

Hurley scoffed. "You can't even give me that, huh?"

"I will! Hurley, I will tell you, I swear, just...I can't now. Please believe me."

Hurley looked down on her for a moment with her jaw clenched, then, after a few seconds, released a sigh that made her whole body seem to sag. She looked tired. "What could you possibly need my help with?" Those honest brown eyes locked onto Sloane's just as they always had, eyes that showed everything and demanded she do the same.

* * *

_Hurley had always been cool, in that weird way that some people are. She dressed plainly, was smart but not remarkably so, far from a class clown--overall didn't strive for attention much. They flocked to her anyway. Every time that Sloane had ever seen her in classes or in the halls, she was always with other people, various groups she'd met in one of her numerous extracurriculars. Sometimes in the center of the crowd, telling a story to make the others laugh, but more often simply at home among them, listening and smiling along with her friends. She didn't even have to try, it seemed. People were just comfortable with her. Comfortable. That's the word that Sloane associated with her before all else._

_She and Sloane traveled in different circles, though. Certainly, Hurley had never glanced her way when they passed in the halls, except to occasionally give her the same polite smile that she gave everyone else when they happened to lock eyes._

_That was fine. Sloane wasn't interested in traveling around with her big flocks of friends anyway. Other people slowed her down, and besides, she had better things to do. Like replace all the rapiers they used to practice fighting in PE with meter-long Pixie Stix. Or steal all the octopuses they kept in the Conjuration lab and release them in the cafeteria--she thought it a shame that the professors cut off their tentacles just so students had components for spell-casting, and anyway, it was worth it to see the lunch ladies’ faces when they saw a pair of eyes peeking out of the soup. She didn't mind getting caught much anyway. She had a brand. That's where she had her own comfort, performing just that role._

_Occasionally, after she did something especially outlandish that turned into the talk of the school, she would see if Hurley looked at her any differently, whether she noticed. Whether she would say, "Pretty ballsy of you," and then Sloane would say, "You should see my other ideas," and Hurley would say, "Like what?" and Sloane would say, "Wanna find out?" But that, of course, had never happened. And that was fine, too. Other people knew her for her boldness, and that reputation was enough._

_And then last week Hurley had to come in and save her ass._

_The one time she'd noticed Sloane, and it was while she was hanging pitifully off the side of a wall._

_Sure, she had done her best to make amends that day. Probably, she had even done a decent job of being nonchalant about it, asking as though she weren't bothered. But now she saw Hurley in the halls and instead turned to look at the school-sponsored fliers on the wall that she had never actually read before. (So this school had a knitting club--who knew?) Anything to avoid looking into the eyes of the person who, she was sure, now saw her as helpless. She could deal with the humiliation so long as it was never repeated again._

_"Hey, is this seat taken?"_

_Damn it all._

_As much as Sloane wanted to, she distinctly did not whip her head around to stare at the speaker with open-mouthed idiocy. She simply sat up a little at the cafeteria bench and glanced sideways at Hurley, who looked at her with a soft, dimpled smile. "Nope," she replied. She had been tempted to say yes, but how would it look when no one actually joined her? "Why do you ask?" That, she immediately realized, might have been the stupidest of all possible responses._

_Hurley chuckled. "Well, do you mind if I sit here?"_

_Yes. "No, of course not. Hurley, right?" (As if she needed to ask. As if she had even needed to ask the last time they had met. As if she hadn't known since high school began.)_

_"Yeah, that's right."_

_"Cool, cool." Everything was not, in fact, cool. She tried, graspingly, to think of what to say next, what might be interesting and make the girl stick around longer, even as she wished that Hurley would just leave and quit pitying her. But nothing that came to mind sounded good enough. This wasn't a script she'd rehearsed in her head--she had never imagined Hurley just starting a conversation over a random lunch, unless it were to compliment her on her latest act of brashness. The longer she spent trying to come up with something to say, the more her thoughts turned to sludge and the more her brain buzzed with anxiety._

_"Your shoes are cool, by the way."_

_"Oh," Sloane said. What shoes had she even put on this morning again? "Hey, thanks."_

_"Yeah, I was talking to my friend Kira about it. She says she'd kill for spiked heels."_

_Right. Black platforms studded with silver spikes. Those were the shoes that she had spent fifteen minutes deciding on. "Seriously? I think I had her in a couple classes before. She's kind of preppy for that, isn't she?"_

_"She wears almost exclusively lavender, yeah," Hurley chuckled. "But I pointed you out to her yesterday, and she said she liked your style."_

_"Wow, cool." Somehow, Sloane had always simply assumed that Hurley's friends--her well-behaved, intelligent, put-together friends--had looked down on her penchant for all-black clothes and fires set in trashcans. "Hey, uh, by the way, are your friends gonna, like, be joining us here?"_

_"Not if you don't want them to, I guess? I'm pretty sure a lot of them are busy this period, actually. They all asked me to try out for the musical with them right now, but there's no way I'd have time for rehearsals this quarter."_

_"It doesn't matter to me whether they come or not," Sloane said, awash with relief at the thought that at least she wouldn't have to deal with more strangers._

_"So how are you doing?" Hurley asked._

_"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that, after what happened on Thursday?"_

_"Hey, come on, you have to believe that I'm tougher than that. I'm over it."_

_Sloane paused. "Are you?"_

_"Ok, well, no I'm not," Hurley said, far more quietly and darkly. "Hell no. I still think those couple of shitheads should get what's coming to them."_

_Sloane grinned. This she could talk about. "Damn right. I've got seven different revenge ideas I'm trying to settle on. Wanna help out?"_

_Hurley's eyebrows raised, mercifully, in an amused way. "Yeah, I bet you would. I dunno, though. I already ended up telling the police anyway. Don't worry, I managed to not mention you. Those two both ended up getting suspended."_

_"Suspended? Please, that's like taking a vacation."_

_"You would know, huh?" Hurley giggled._

_"You might say that. Anyway, I bet I could do better."_

_"How's that?"_

_"Well, I know for sure it'd involve a Rug of Smothering doused in cat pee and set outside their front door."_

_Hurley turned away to look at the table, but a slow smile began to spread on her face and crinkle the corners of her eyes. "I mean, you're better off covering it in, like, rotten fish juice than cat pee, right? 'Cause if they get wrapped up in the rug, they're going to have cats following them and their fish-stink for the next week."_

_"Goddamn," Sloane said, breathless. "Goddamn, you're so right. I fucking love that. Do you know I've even got a deal with the guy at the fish market who gives me scraps at the end of the day? Yeah, let's fucking do it."_

_"You're used to doing this kind of thing, huh?"_

_Sloane smiled and tilted her head at Hurley. "That bother you, Officer Hurley?"_

_"I don't know yet," she answered, giving Sloane an equally sly glance out of the corner of her eye. "But I think..."_

_"Hey, don't leave me in suspense."_

_"I think I like your attitude. I always kind of wanted to not give a fuck, but I'm not cool enough."_

_Sloane felt a warmth in her chest, suddenly, felt it expand. "Do you like astrology?" she blurted simply because it was the first thing she thought of._

_"I...don't think I've done it before? Why?"_

_"Want me to show you your birth chart? You know what time you were born, right?"_

_"Yeah, alright."_

_Sloane was suddenly proud that she always carried around old star charts and almanacs borrowed from the Divination classrooms in her backpack, as opposed to the school books she actually needed. Most of the rest of lunch was filled up with discussions of which planets influenced the signs, and maps of constellations that Sloane promised to point out in person if they ever got far enough away from the city to see stars, and her trying very hard not to react when Hurley's shoulder touched her arm as she leaned over to look at diagrams._

_"Hey." Without warning, she turned to Sloane to stare at her directly, looking a little wide-eyed. "You haven't eaten all of lunch, I just realized."_

_"Ah, yeah. I don't normally. It's fine, I had breakfast."_

_To her annoyance, Hurley's eyes didn't move from hers for an instant. "You should still eat something. You've got classes the rest of the day, don't you?"_

_"In theory. Not sure if I'm going yet. I RSVP'd with a 'maybe' to all my teachers."_

_"Seriously, though, you're not gonna eat at all?"_

_"Probably not. It's cool, though. I don't normally get hungry at this time anyway." She worked her jaw as she tried not to feel the hunger pangs scraping against the inside of her gut. Honestly, she hadn't been feeling hungry until Hurley started making her think about food. It would've been fine otherwise._

_"Why don't you get something now? You've still got a few minutes."_

_"Like I said, I don't really want to? Anyway, I don't have money with me."_

_Hurley's chair squealed loudly against the floor as she stood. "I have money. I can get--"_

_"I don't want your fucking help!"_

_Sloane hadn't realized how loudly she'd said it until she heard the quiet left in the wake of her words. Kids from surrounding tables had hushed and turned from their own conversations to look at her. She had, she now realized, stood up without thinking about it._  
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck--

_Hurley, meanwhile, still just kept on gazing. She blinked as though dazed by a blow. "Fuck, okay," she muttered._

_"I..." Sloane huffed. "Look, sorry. Really, I am. I just...don't spend your money on me, okay? I don't need charity. Look, I have to go."_

_Well, there goes that fucking chance._

_She was almost out of the cafeteria, almost free of those sympathetic eyes, when she heard from behind her, "So do you wanna get a bite later or what?"_

_Sloane stopped, then turned, then blinked. She started walking back towards Hurley, saying, "Listen, like I just said--"_

_"I didn't say I was going to pay for your food," Hurley replied calmly. "I'm asking if you want to hang out. We're friends."_

_Sloane reeled for a moment from the fact that someone could say something like that with such confidence. She thought that certainly she would be pitied, then hated, and tried to understand that perhaps she was neither. Then, with a smile growing by the moment, she said, "I have something better we could do."_

* * *

_"Hey, is it safe to be totally honest with you?"_

_"Don't see why not."_

_"This looks like a terrible fucking idea."_

_Sloane snickered and swung her leg over to straddle the bike seat. "Come on, you don't want to test out my handiwork?"_

_Hurley's sigh was a weary one. "Look, it's not like I'm not impressed that you somehow managed to strap a...probably fifteen-year-old engine to your bicycle and make it work, but it looks like the parts are basically being held together by rust at this point."_

_"Hey, I wouldn't try convincing you to do anything that I haven't tried out myself first."_

_"I don't find that reassuring," she muttered._

_Sloane giggled. "You wanna sit behind me or up front by the handlebars? You're small enough to basically be in my lap."_

_"Ah, I see what this is about. Trying to make me be your meat-shield." Hurley smiled as she sat down, positioning herself carefully on the small space left on the bike seat between Sloane's legs. "Well, I like seeing what's going on in front of me anyway."_

_"So you ready?"_

_"As I'll ever be."_

_Still laughing, Sloane pulled on the cord connected to the motor and kept it taut while the engine wheezed as though startled awake, then resolved into a steady, strong growl._

_She ran over the grass as she made a wide turn out of the driveway and headed immediately for the back alleys. All she could think of as she wove deftly through them was getting to the main streets and then finally to Goldcliff's highway, a road straight and smooth as the inside of a gun barrel. From there, she and Hurley and her little machine could rip through the city's border like it was nothing, which it was. Taking them through the turns that she had memorized long ago, she passed through the narrow gaps between brick and metal buildings. She emerged from under their shadows and into the shocking brilliance of the afternoon, turning onto the busy roads. Her motor roared more intensely as she sped up. The faster she went, the sharper the wind felt as it cut across her cheeks. She felt it scrape away impurities, all the worries that had attached themselves to her, until she was only a body rocketing down a road. It wasn't long before they got onto the highway and reached Goldcliff's escape velocity._

_And all the while, every time Sloane looked down at Hurley, she was smiling. Not just a typical pleased smile—it was one that was so wide it looked like it ached, one that left her teeth bared to the oncoming wind, one both wild and genuine. She gripped the bike with both hands and stared ahead as though transfixed by the road in front of her._

_They screamed away from the skyscrapers and found the formations of sandstone instead rising from the desert in front of them. Sloane pulled off the highway after a time and took them down the roads that eventually devolved into little more than stretches of dirt. No one else was out here._

_When, at last, she pulled over and let the clouds of dust catch up with her, Hurley hopped off instantly and turned to look at her. "That was the coolest shit ever! Fuck! That was amazing! Where did you learn to ride like that?"_

_"Self-taught, if you'd believe it." Sloane grinned as she put down the kick-stand and dismounted as well._

_"You have to show me how to do that. You will, right?"_

_Sloane raised her eyebrows at her. "You're really in love with it already, huh?"_

_"It felt like..." Hurley stared down at her hands as though they held the words she needed to explain. "It was weightless."_

_"It is, yeah." Sloane watched her wide eyes shine like a kid on Candlenights and felt like she could never look away._

_"Where are we, by the way?"_

_"Just somewhere I come to hang out a lot." Sloane walked to the ten-foot stone structure with the overhang that stood just off the side of the road and sat down in its shade. "Mainly just as a riding destination. It's quiet, you know?" She wondered, nervously, if she shouldn't have taken Hurley here, if this was too dull a spot compared to the fun that she had promised. But Hurley joined her, the grin on her face never faltering._

_They had scarcely been there for a minute when a streak of black feathers, stark against the golds and reds of the sand, settled down in the sun in front of them._

_"Huh," Hurley said._

_"Oh, hang on. He's here for me." Sloane reached into her back pocket and shuffled around in it while she sing-songed to the bird, "Yeah, you're just here to say hi to me, huh? What a pretty boy! He's such a good bird!"_

_She felt Hurley looking at her again, and she didn't stop looking until Sloane finally turned to face her. "You're friends with ravens?"_

_"Well, I just started feeding them once." She tossed fragments of jerky from her pocket and watched the animal snap them up with its beak. "And once you feed one, the whole flock expects you to deliver. They're pretty cool, you know. The young ones come back to visit their parents for a long time after they leave the nest. Plus they match my aesthetic."_

_"That's important."_

_"Hell yeah it is." Sloane glanced over to find Hurley watching her, still smiling but differently this time, in a way that was more reserved but seemed no less honest. She blinked softly._

_"You're a surprising person, Sloane."_

_"Well, I try to be," she shrugged, turning back to the bird in the hope that she could hide the blush she felt crawling up her neck. "Okay, birdie, I'm all out of food! You're all done!"_

_The raven cocked its head at her a few more times and pecked idly at the ground. Then, with a seemingly sudden conviction, it fixed its sights on the eastern sky and flew straight off, as though following some unseen sign. Sloane watched it disappear and felt something chafe in her._

_"I've heard they're shapeshifters," Hurley murmured. "You know how they're all iridescent and look different when the sun hits them? That's supposed to be them changing shape. Or, that's what my grandparents used to tell me."_

_"I have heard that, too. I've never met anyone else who knew that, though," Sloane said softly, then paused for a moment. "Would you ever want to leave? For real, I mean."_

_"What, like, leave the city permanently?"_

_"Yeah."_

_Hurley ran her fingers through the sand. "No. Traveling would be nice, but there's too much keeping me here. Too much I want to do that I can't do anywhere else."_

_"So you've mentioned."_

_"What about you? Would you ever--"_

_"In a second." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hurley look at her, but did not meet her gaze. In front of them both, the expanse of hot red earth seemed as wide and empty as the sky. The sparse stones and shrubs that dotted the landscape grew microscopic and then disappeared from view altogether as they approached the horizon. She imagined vanishing in the same way, walking into the shimmering air rising up from the baking ground and evading the sight of everyone she had ever known. The desert did not care for who she was or what she did. Out there, there was no one to answer to. "I've been over this city for years."_

_There was that look of concern on Hurley's face again. "There's nothing at all keeping you here? Family or anything?"_

_"Ha! No."_

_"Where would you go?"_

_"Anywhere. Everywhere. I just want something new. You should too, I think."_

_Hurley snorted a little. "Why me specifically?"_

_"We're smarter than anyone else we know. Don't laugh--it's true. No one around here should be telling us what to do."_

_"I'm not gonna lie and say that's not appealing. Neverwinter always seemed cool to me. Or just, you know, anywhere you could see the ocean."_

_"Yeah! See? You should leave. We'll take that shitty little bike along the coast, if you want."_

_Hurley watched a line of ants cross in front of her toes with a strange, solemn look. Then, slowly, her smile returned. "You really think I'm smart?"_

_"Are you insane? You're the only person I've met in ages worth talking to."_

_"And I don't need to take direction from anybody?"_

_"Hell no."_

_She hopped up and started walking quickly towards the bike, calling brightly behind her, "Glad you think so. I'm driving us home, okay?"_

_"Hey!" Sloane nearly slipped on the sand as she rushed to get to her feet and ran after Hurley, laughing. "Absolutely the fuck not."_

* * *

_She dropped Hurley off at the bus stop before going home. She slowed as she pulled into the driveway, heard the motor start to quiet down, and felt sick. Anxiety returned to her like a cloud of disturbed dust slowly settling back onto a surface._

_She went to the back door and cracked it open, slowly enough so that it didn't creak. Peeking in, she saw that the windows were closed. Everything in the house looked grey-washed. No one was home. Good._

_Once inside, she walked past the twenty-year-old couch with brownish flower-patterned upholstery, the crumpled bills on the coffee table lying next to shorn envelopes, the old boots lying one on top of the other, the mousetraps in the corners, the mantle above the fireplace with no photos, the sleeping potions, the clock that used to belong to her mother and to her mother's father before that, the unwashed laundry._

_In the front of the house, a door slammed, and Sloane didn't have to think. She bolted up the stairs. Long ago, she had learned how to do so quietly. She made sure her feet didn't land too heavily even as her legs worked. She stuck to the edges of the steps rather than running on the middle, where they were more likely to squeal._

_She stayed in her room, noiseless, as she listened to her father downstairs walking around and opening the occasional cabinet, until she heard him open the door and walk out again. Then everything was quiet_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy second chapter at last! Sorry it took uhhhh...two months to get it to you. It's a fair bit longer than the last one, though, so hopefully that makes up for it? Unfortunately, I can't promise that updates will be any more regular in the future now that school has started up again, but I am extremely excited for the next chapter, so I'll try to get it to you as soon as I can manage! 
> 
> Side-note: This chapter was really heavily inspired by the song "This Year" and also a bunch of other songs. I thought I might as well be even more self-indulgent here than I already am and share the Spotify playlist I use for this fic. It's here: /user/22zijxyep736blys4meq54nbq/playlist/70GtUgSfCr9MJizm7EOmDv?si=vgyOi_0nSYeeRb2hiX_a0A
> 
> Thanks again for checking out the fic, and I would love it if you commented! :*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: HOOOOLY SHIT so apparently I accidentally posted this chapter initially without the first few paragraphs and literally just now noticed? Apologies for that. :( 
> 
> What is UP y'all I'm still out here writing stupid fluff and posting chapters at my usual abysmally slow pace.
> 
> This is just a heads-up that I have indeed decided to make this fic longer than three chapters! It'll probably be close to ten? I won't know until I write more of it but I do already have some of the later ones partially written so I very much hope that all of you who've been interested in the fic thus far look forward to it!
> 
> Also while I'm here uhhhh sorry if the quality of this chapter is somewhat lacking. I'm not totally happy with it but I really just wanted to get it posted already because I've been sitting on it so long. I promise the next one will feature fewer OCs, and I hope the ones I introduced here aren't too distracting!
> 
> Thank you SO, SO MUCH to everyone who's left kudos and comments so far! Every one makes my day! I really appreciate every one of you who's read this fic. I'm having a ton of fun with it and I hope you are too. <3

At some point, it occurred to Hurley that hosting a wanted thief in her apartment would probably not be the best look for a police lieutenant. 

"We have to get you out of here," she said more so to herself than Sloane. "You can't stay here long. The neighbors would figure out something's up eventually and start talking. And I've got coworkers that come by often enough."

"The militia barely knows what I look like."

"We know enough," she snapped back impatiently. "Just because GCPD doesn't know the Raven's name doesn't mean we have nothing to go on. You're not exactly subtle. I'm not going to run the risk of one of them seeing something and putting two and two together." 

As she spoke, she felt in her pocket for the cool metal of the handcuff key, its edge pressing into her thumb. She stepped toward Sloane, moved the key toward her shackled wrist, then paused, hand hovering. The thought came to her clear and cold as a sudden gust:  _It's not too late._ She had Sloane. She had a stone of far-speech that could summon a veritable swarm of Goldcliff's Finest to her apartment within three minutes. She probably wouldn't even have to see the arrest happen, could just walk outside and quietly tip off the department and let her coworkers do the rest. That might bring an end to the muttering at the office from people who wondered aloud, some with feigned innocence and some with unabashed bitterness, what a halfling ever did to deserve being promoted as young as she was. At the very least, putting away the Raven would keep her from feeling her guts twist every time she met the gaze of the half-elf. 

Sloane watched her, still and wary--Sloane, who had, in spite of everything, trusted her in coming here. Who had asked for help. Of course it was too late. It had been too late for years. 

She unlocked the cuffs. "We're going to have to find someplace else to talk about things," she said. "I have an idea, but we're going to have to be careful about leaving this place, so no one know--" 

In an instant, the chill of the night air was at her neck. She whipped around to find the window opened wide into a room that was empty except for herself. She felt herself getting primed to panic until, a moment later, Sloane's face popped back into view, looking in through the window. "Come on," she whispered. "I'll make sure we don't get spotted."

"What do mean, come on? I can't hang off the side of a building like that." 

"I'll carry you."

"You can't be serious."

Sloane shrugged. "I mean, or we could go out the only door right onto a main street with lots of people and streetlights."

"How do you know that's the only door?"

"Scoped out the exits before I woke you up."

Hurley groaned and dragged her hands over her tired face. It was too damned late for this, or possibly too early--she didn't know how close to daybreak it was, and everything seemed disorienting and dreamlike, functioning with a form of logic she didn't know how to follow. "Fine," she mumbled at last into her palms, deciding that at least this way she could keep Sloane in her sight until she got some answers. 

It was true that leaving the in this way would almost certainly prevent their being noticed. The building next door had no windows facing their way, and suddenly Hurley was thankful that her shitty apartment didn't have much of a view from her bedroom. Below, there was an alley that no one except the stray cats frequented--before, people would occasionally meet up to cut drug deals, but that had abruptly stopped once everyone knew that a vigilant young cop had moved in overhead. She clambered through the window and carefully, awkwardly, wrapped her legs around Sloane's middle, hands clutching her black-clad shoulders. (She did not loop her arms loosely around Sloane's neck in an embrace, which is what she had done a childhood ago, a couple times, when she had convinced the taller girl to carry her up to their shared bed at two in the morning.) 

Sloane began to climb down once she was secure. As she concentrated on finding meager footholds in the brick facade, Hurley studied her face, which was uncomfortably close. There was still the long, narrow scar that ran over her lips, the one that Hurley had once known well, that had felt a little uneven against her mouth every time they kissed. But there were others now, too. A pale mark in her skin that ran across the bridge of her nose. Two notches in her right ear, rips probably left behind by projectiles that had narrowly missed her head. Evidence of a history that Hurley didn't know, written into her flesh. Things that Sloane had seen, that Hurley hadn't been around to face with her or protect her from. 

Sloane had changed. She must have. It was all over her face. Hurley wondered whether the person she was helping now was at all the same one that she had spent all those nights with. 

They reached the ground, and Hurley started to lead the way through the dark back streets. When she was sure they were alone, she said in a hush, "Tell me something."

"Shoot."

"When I cornered you in the warehouse, did you get caught on purpose? Were you looking for me?"

"Well, I didn't especially want a gun pointed at me," she answered dryly. "Mainly I was just hoping to...get your attention, I guess. Same as always."

Hurley rolled her eyes at that last bit. 

"Did it work?" Sloane went on. "Did you suspect?"

"There was something...familiar about the Raven, even at the beginning," she mumbled. "But no. Why would I have thought she was you? All I knew is I wanted to get her more than any other criminal, except for the violent ones anyway."

They were quiet the rest of the short walk until they came to the large but slightly squat house tucked in amongst a line of similar ones. Hurley stopped in front of the door. 

"Oh, hell no," she heard Sloane say behind her. 

She turned around and hoped Sloane could see her smirk in the dark. "You got a better idea?"

"Maybe you should just arrest me now instead."

"As if you'd last in jail."  _The old Sloane wouldn't last in jail_ , Hurley reminded herself.  _You don't know what she's dealt with._ But Sloane huffed, resigned, as though she agreed. 

"Now, if you want my help, come with me," Hurley said, unlocking the door to her childhood home. 

* * *

_"Hey, don't you ever get hot?"_

_"Hmm?" Sloane, reclining on the ground with her hand on her belly, turned at the question. Her thick hair cushioned her some from the dirt beneath her head. In the slanted square of shade behind the school building where they sat, the sun couldn't sting them, but the day's heat still drifted up from the ground to embrace them like vapor._

_"I mean, you're always wearing black leather jackets. You're going to get heatstroke one of these days."_

_"I'm used to it by now. The only hot I am's a hot mess."_

_"'Hot mess' is half-right."_

_"Which half?" Hurley just laughed, and Sloane sat up. "Hurley, tell me which half."_

_"You figure it out."_

_"Fuck you!" She flopped back over onto her back with great melodrama. Hurley chuckled before turning back to her homework, which she managed to concentrate on for an impressive thirty seconds before she noticed Sloane moving again out of the corner of her eye. She always seemed to be keeping one eye on Sloane, even when she didn't mean to. Something silvery flashed at the half-elf's hip._

_"What's that?"_

_"Just an old ring." Sloane absently played with the little metal thing. It wove between her long fingers and rolled over her knuckles, but she never dropped it. Occasionally she flipped it into the air to watch it spin in the sun or even seemed to make it vanish with a sleight of hand, only to have it reappear from inside her sleeve. All this she did effortlessly, while looking at the sky. She was fidgety like that, Hurley had noticed. She had noticed a lot of things in the months since they had started hanging out on the regular. What could she say? Sloane was interesting, sometimes contradictory. For someone so keen on rebellion, she valued her peace. She liked her private hideouts and the quiet of the desert almost as much as she liked the drone of a motor in her ears. Hurley surmised that she liked them all for the same reason. The deafening white noise of the bike erased the clamor of everything else until it seemed as though nothing on earth existed except the wind. It carved out a space where the concerns of the world could not intervene. The quiet places, too--the red rocks and the place below the train tracks and the back of the school building after classes were over--were sacred. Free._

_And she had welcomed Hurley into them, and apparently no one else, if one didn't count the birds._

_Now and again, much as she snarked whenever she could, Sloane would seem to get thoughtful and stare off into the distance without saying much. Hurley wasn't used to that. She usually hung out with talkers. Everyone in her family was chatty, as were most of her other friends. Silences were awkward things, conversational potholes to be filled in with small talk. But that wasn't the case with Sloane. Many times they'd watched the sun ripen to red before it sank below the horizon and said nothing, just sat in the moment as though the scene had played out for the two of them alone. As though the two of them were alone on the planet. In their quiet pocket of the world, there was no need to work or run as she always did. She liked just being with Sloane, and she liked just being._

_The ring was still on the move. "Where'd you get it?" Hurley asked._

_"Would you believe I got engaged?"_

_"You stole it, didn't you?"_

_"The guy shoved me in the food line."_

_"Sloane!"_

_"Look, he's not going to miss it!"_

_Hurley huffed and held out her hand. "Give it to me. I'm going to turn it in and just say I found it so someone can get it back." She was trying to sound firm, but could barely keep her lips from squirming into a grin. Honestly, she wasn't taking this as seriously as she probably should. Not that she condoned theft. Of course not. It's just that she knew Sloane well enough to know that she seldom stole anything that would truly be missed. The ring, for instance, looked pretty cheap._

_"Fine." The look in Sloane's eyes turned a little dangerous, the same way it did whenever she first got on the bike. "You have to get it from me first, though."_

_Hurley lunged for it, but Sloane rolled out of the way and got to her feet quick as anything. She dangled the ring high above her head, at nearly twice Hurley's height, triumphant. "Ha! You're going to have to do better than--"_

_Before Sloane could hide the thing, Hurley leapt, concentrating her mind and willing the breezes to lift her higher than she could go on her own. She snatched the ring in an instant, feeling its coolness against her fist. She still felt the air beneath her feet, allowing her to hover above the ground for a moment before it neatly set her back down. Looking over her shoulder, she gave a slightly stunned Sloane her smuggest smirk possible. "Step of the Wind. You're not the only one who's got tricks."_

_This was another thing Hurley liked about these moments, their stupid little games. Sloane didn't seem to mind being bested too much. Instead, she would look as if she had just gotten a thrill. She would look at Hurley, as she was looking now, breathing lightly, eyebrow cocked in an expression halfway between curiosity and mischief. It was the same look, Hurley realized, that she gave to something she was planning on stealing. The thought made her turn away, and then, having nowhere in particular to look, she stared at her unfinished homework. "Gods, I can't get anything done with you around," she complained. "You're so distracting."_

_"Hey, you were the one who started talking to me again." Hurley hated that she was right._

_Suddenly, the gusts returned, only this time Hurley hadn't called them to come. Their gazes turned to the sky, which was being eaten up by purple-black cloud. In the distance, the sun shone from behind a swath of rain that hung down from the sky like a thin grey veil being dragged along the ground. Soon, the light, too, faded, dulling the colors of the desert._

_"That storm's going to be here pretty soon."_

_"Yup," Sloane answered in a hush. She leaned forward a little, watching the silent lightning--they were still too far off to hear the thunder. Excitement widened her eyes. There were gold flecks in those green eyes, Hurley knew. She couldn't see them now, because she could only ever see them when they were reflecting the bright light, but they were there. Hidden gold._

_After awhile, Hurley said slowly, "We should probably get out of here before we get caught out in it. Listen, my house is way closer than yours. Why don't we both just go there?"_

_"Eh, I don't mind being out in it that much."_

_Sloane would resist if it seemed like Hurley was trying to offer help. "Can't we keep hanging out though? You've never been to my place."_

_That got Sloane's attention. She took her eyes off the storm. "You want me to come?"_

_"Yeah! I really do. I mean, if you're up for it."_

_"Well, I guess I can't pass up, then."_

* * *

_Wet weather, rare as it was in Goldcliff, always moved in fast and came on suddenly. They parked the bike outside and rushed into the glow of Hurley's house just as the sky loudly cracked apart._

_Sloane watched the front window turn into a frame of light as the lightning flashed. Then she turned to look around at the house. "Nice. This place is big."_

_Hurley ran a hand through her hair, brushing away the few drops of water that had fallen on her head on the way in. "Well, there's six of us, so, you know."_

_"Damn."_

_She walked towards the kitchen, leaving Sloane by the door. "Oh, by the way, brace yourself."_

_Sloane paused and blinked at her. "Wh--"_

_Before she could get out another sound, a four-year-old with unbrushed brown hair had thundered down the stairs in little pink-socked feet and attached herself to her leg. Sloane produced a strange sound of shock from the back of her throat and appeared to nearly jump back in surprise, except that jumping would have risked the safety of said little girl attached to her leg. Hurley stifled a laugh in her palm as Sloane looked down, disbelieving, at her youngest sibling and mumbled, "Um, hi."_

_"San!" Tamora marched in, her small red cheeks puffing with righteous indignation. She began attempting to unravel San's arms from around Sloane. "Don't do that! You don't know her! Sorry, she always does this," she grouched, looking up at Sloane._

_"It's really fine--"_

_"Hey, is that your bike outside?" Tobias had poked his head in from the living room, and Siobhan followed suit._

_Sloane spun to look at them. "Uh, yeah."_

_"Where'd you get it?"_

_"Can we have a ride? Please."_

_"Well--"_

_"Yeah, please? Just around the block."_

_"Hey!" Hurley chose, at that moment, to put a now deeply bewildered Sloane out of her misery. "Quit bossing her around, will you? She just walked in." She beckoned for San to come into her arms and picked her up. Then she looked at Sloane and pointed at each of her siblings in turn, saying, "Siobhan, Tamora, Tobias, and San. Guys, this is my friend Sloane. Now please--"_

_"Is she your girlfriend?"_

_Hurley grabbed Tobias and clapped a hand over his mouth, ignoring it when he liberally licked her palm to try to get her to let go. "No, you turd."_

_Unfortunately, she didn't have enough hands to rein in all of her siblings. Tamora piped up next. "But you're always talking about her!"_

_Sloane's head snapped around to look at her, eyebrow cocked and grin slowly growing on her face. "Do you?"_

_"I've...mentioned you." She couldn't have talked about Sloane that often. Only when it was relevant. Like when she was talking about how her day went and mentioned how the two of them had hung out. Which, granted, was most days, now._

_"Yeah, and you keep coming late for dinner because you're with her!"_

_Siobhan, being too short to tap Sloane's shoulder, settled for poking her arm to get her attention. "Are you guys dating? Hurley won't tell us 'cause she's a butt."_

_The smile on Sloane's face had by now morphed into a smirk, lopsided and devious. "I don't know." Her voice was damn near a sing-song. "Are we, Hurley? There something you want to tell me?"_

_"There's a lot of things I'd like to tell you at the moment," Hurley growled._

_"Aw, sweetie, don't be like that," Sloane giggled, prompting a chorus of excited "ooo"s from the kids that rose in pitch by the moment. Their questions tripped over one another as they all tried to speak at once, to the point that their voices became tangled and unintelligible. Still, Sloane smiled at Hurley, eyes crinkling. In spite of her annoyance, it took a great deal of effort to look mad at her, to prevent herself from smiling back, just from the sheer absurdity of it all._

_"Hey, Hurley says you have pet ravens. Is that true?"_

_"They're more like friends." Sloane seemed more relaxed, after getting over the shock of being bombarded by four children at once. "They like to come chill with me when I'm alone. Not so hard to get them to like you, as long as you never run out of snacks."_

_"Can you show us?"_

_"Yeah! Like, when it's not raining, though, preferably. I got all these from them." She gestured to the handmade necklace strung with feathers that routinely hung around her neck._

_"Do you have to catch them to get the feathers?"_

_"Ha! No, I'd get my as--butt--pecked to death if I tried. I just pick up the ones they drop."_

_Tobias reached up towards the necklace. "Can I see it?"_

_"Yeah, sure. Just be gentle if you wanna touch it." And she knelt, chuckling as the kids gathered in closer around her. This time Hurley couldn't keep herself from smiling, and she didn't try._

_Setting San down so the four-year-old could join the others, Hurley quickly said, "I'll be right back," though Sloane almost seemed too wrapped up in her siblings to notice for the moment. Hurley didn't mind._

_She reached the white door that stood to the left of the kitchen and knocked. "Mom?"_

_"It's open, Hurley!"_

_She stepped inside the office to find her mother hunched over a desk, attacking what was almost certainly a series of invoices, the top of her pen furiously waggling in the air as she moved it rapidly across the papers. Without turning around, she lifted her hand, knuckles bearing a cross-hatching of old scars, and brought it down with a meaningful slap on top of a stack of documents several inches thick. "Orders for cheesecake, every single one of them! And of course half of them want them by the end of the week for their engagement or retirement party or Yondalla-knows-what. Do they think I'm a Conjurer or what? They can't ask me to pull twenty triple-fudges out of my ass in a matter of days. And if they do, they're just gonna have to realize it's going to taste like something that came out of my ass."_

_Hurley, who heard something like this no less than once a week, strode forward and put a hand on her mom's shoulder. "Mom, I brought a friend over. Can you come say hi?"_

_She glanced back at Hurley immediately, a little glint lighting up her single seeing eye. "Oh? Someone I haven't met yet?"_

_"Yeah, you remember how I told you about Sloane?"_

_"Oh, yes," she answered, with a high pitch to her voice that conveyed far too much excitement. The lightning-like scar that stretched like webbing over half her face shifted as her grin grew. "It's about time you brought her around, if you ask me."_

_"Wh--ugh, Mom! You're worse than the kids," she grumbled, sounding petulant on purpose. Normally this kind of thing wouldn't bother her much, but it occurred to her that every time someone brought up the idea of her and Sloane together, she would have to remind herself not to imagine it. That was just weird._

_Her mom just chuckled. "Alright, I'm just teasing. I'll be out in just a minute to meet her."_

_When Hurley stepped out again, she found Sloane still sitting on the floor amongst the kids, who seemed to be talking more at her than to her. The sight alone caused something warm to rise in her chest and settle there, simultaneously buoying and calming her like the magic she used sometimes to levitate. She leaned against the entrance to the front of the house, just watching, until Sloane spotted her and stood. "Hey, we were just swapping embarrassing stories about you."_

_"You're supposed to be on my side, jerk," Hurley laughed. "Hey, come  with me."_

_"Hurley!" Tobias whined. "She was going to play with us!"_

_"You guys are gonna have to wait! I want her to meet Mom."_

_The easy grin slid from the half-elf's lips as quickly as the raindrops streaking down the windowpanes, so quickly that Hurley was startled by the way her lips turned downwards. "Uh...your mom?"_

_"Yeah. Why, is that not okay?"_

_"I mean, like, are you sure...do you think she'll like me?"_

_Hurley looked at her, incredulous. "Um, yes? Or I wouldn't be introducing you? Why wouldn't she?"_

_"Because it would make her statistically normal." Sloane laughed lightly as she said it, but by now Hurley knew how to interpret the way her eyes darted around like they were looking for an escape route, ping-ponging from wall to wall._

_"That's horseshit," she replied under her breath, ensuring her siblings couldn't hear. She took Sloane's hand and held it loosely in her own. Green eyes fixed on her. She saw the gold in them now, under the lamplight, luminous. "Mom's cool. Like, she can be a little much, but I can't even imagine why she wouldn't like you. You're going to be fine, okay?"_

_The doubtful grimace that crossed Sloane's face suggested otherwise, but by then the decision was out of their hands. Hurley heard the familiar, faint rumble of her mom's wheelchair rolling towards them. "Well!" She practically felt a jolt run through Sloane at the boom of her mother's voice and had to stifle a laugh. "I thought I heard the kids getting excited about something. Sounds like you were getting along with them."_

_"Uh..." Sloane seemed momentarily at a loss. Then she shook her head a little and rolled her shoulders back. "Hi, Ms...."_

_"It's Eileen, dear. We don't do formalities in this house." Somewhere in the house, Siobhan sang/yelled an apparently original song about butts. "Exhibit A."_

_Sloane giggled, with only a touch of nervousness leaking out. "They're sweet."_

_"Glad someone thinks so," her mom said dryly, although the mere mention of the little ones made her look a little prouder._

_"So, Mom, this is Sloane," Hurley interjected._

_"Yes, and I'm so glad we're finally meeting. I've heard good things."_

_"Thank you, and...how much do you talk about me, exactly?" Sloane glanced at Hurley._

_"Too much, apparently," she deadpanned back._

_"You know, Hurley doesn't bring too many of her school or club friends over here."_

_"Mom!"_

_"I'm just saying, Hurley," she went on, eyebrows raised playfully, "maybe she's a good influence on you. I like it when you bring people over here."_

_"No one's ever called me a good influence on anyone," Sloane said wryly._

_"Oh, I like her. Now, do you mind if I get a good look at you?" Eileen held out her hand and raised it slowly. The chair lifted itself up through the air along with it, until her face was level with Sloane, who looked back at her surprised. "Oh, you're lovely, aren't you?"_

_"Oh...thanks--"_

_"Lemon bars? You seem like a lemon bars type."_

_“I...can't tell if that's a good thing or not."_

_Hurley laughed. "She wants to bake for you."_

_"I'm sick of my clients with their damn cheesecake demands. I'm going to bake for someone I actually like."_

_"You really don't have to--" Sloane attempted._

_"No, but I want to. You know something? Twelve years in the army, I was taking orders from someone else, and when I left..." She paused briefly to pat the stump of her leg. "I decided I was gonna do exactly what I wanted from then on, and that meant making sweets for people, especially the ones I like."_

_Hurley caught Sloane's eye and gave her a knowing look. Told you._

_"You'll stay for a bit, won't you, Sloane?"_

_"If that's okay."_

_"Course it's okay. You ought to make yourself at home here." And her mom pulled Sloane into a hug._

_Just a moment later, they broke apart, with Sloane pulling back. "Hey, Hurley," she said, a little shakily, "where's your room?"_

_Hurley turned to look at her, and only then did she recognize Sloane's expression and the way she tensed up. It went beyond the nervousness that she had displayed before. She was wide-eyed and seemed stunned, as if by a blow. As if she wasn't okay. "Oh, yeah." Hurley felt anxiety bubble in the space around her heart and lungs. "First on the right upstairs."_

_"You mind if I go up there for a second?"_

_"No, of course not."_

_"Thanks. It was nice to meet you, Eileen," she said before hurrying up the stairs._

_Hurley watched after her, feeling suddenly heavy. She went through everything that had just happened, trying to pinpoint the moment that had just resulted in this. This whole thing might have been a bad idea. It might have condemned Sloane to a situation in which she would spend the whole time uncomfortable. She hadn't even thought about it._

_Behind her, her mother asked, "Was that too forward of me?"_

_"I don't...know," she mumbled. "She doesn't normally do that kind of thing."_

_"I think she might just be overwhelmed."_

_Hurley turned to look at her. "What? I don't think she's usually the type to get like that."_

_Her mother shrugged. "Not every family is as...let's say demonstrative as ours. You know that. She might just not be used to all this. You should probably give her a moment before you head up to check on her."_

_Hurley tried, genuinely, to give her a moment. But she had never been known for her patience. It wasn't ten minutes before she was heading gingerly up the steps to the second floor. Her door was cracked open slightly, and, peeking in, she spotted the silhouette of Sloane's back outlined against the dim light coming in through the window._

_She sucked in a breath. "Hey, can I come in?"_

_Ears pricking, Sloane turned around, then grinned when she spotted Hurley through the crack in the door. She didn't seem mad, at least. "Uh, I think this is your room and you can do whatever you like."_

_She climbed onto the bed, her hands sinking into the faded blue bedspread. "Your room is cute," Sloane said. She fingered a clumsily embroidered pillow that Tamora had crafted for her. "I like all the handmade stuff."_

_"Don't give me any credit for that. I just keep whatever other people give me."_

_She looked just a little wry as she picked up a plastic trophy sitting on the bookshelf and read the text engraved on the pedestal. "Can't believe you never told me you're a Shen Dojo Junior A-ki-ver. I have no idea what an A-ki-ver is, but I'm sure it's prestigious as shit."_

_"Like 'achiever,' but with ki." Hurley rolled her eyes. "I got that when I was eight. Mom refuses to let me throw that kind of stuff out, but she also has nowhere to store it, so she makes me keep it up in here."_

_"Aww, she's proud of you."_

_"She could be just a little less proud and I think I'd still be fine," she grumbled, although she smiled down at her hand as she ran her finger over the stitches in her quilt._

_"And all the, uh...papers?"_

_She turned toward the spread of scraps on her desk. "Oh, yeah, sorry. I guess it makes it look like a mess in here. I just save way too much. Sometimes I'll do shit like write the date on gum wrappers and save them, and write whatever happened that day, if it's something I want to remember."_

_In a voice that was warm and full of delight, Sloane breathed, "That's the cheesiest shit I've ever heard."_

_"You're the cheesiest shit I've ever heard." Hurley shoved her playfully, earning a laugh out of her._

_The two of them quieted slowly and faced the gray of the window together. The thunder no longer cracked but thrummed, now and then, all around them. The sound rolled in like a wave from a calm sea coming up the beach, and they soaked in it up to their ears until the rumbling receded. For a time, they listened to the sky breathe deeply._

_When Hurley couldn't make herself wait anymore, she asked, "Are you doing okay?"_

_"Yeah! I'm fine."_

_"You sure? It's just I know my family can be kind of a lot."_

_"They're allowed to be just as much as they damn well want," Sloane giggled and, thankfully, sounded genuine about it. "Really, I like them a lot. Your mom is a badass."_

_"She is, yeah." Hurley wound the tassels on her pillow around her forefinger and unwound them again, thinking of how she might phrase her next question in a way that wouldn't seem condescending. "So you're not that into being touched? Just so I know for next time."_

_The two of them were just barely touching arms. Hurley had done that on purpose, edged near to her to see whether or not she'd react, whether she minded. She hadn't seemed to. But when she asked the question, she felt Sloane's muscles tense momentarily against her. Then the half-elf sighed and let her shoulders sag once again. "It's not...I wouldn't say that I don't like it."_

_Hurley raised her eyebrows. "You sure? We could also just not touch you as much."_

_"No, no." Her words were slow, and she sounded confused. "It's weird, I just...wasn't expecting it. People don't normally do that, in my experience. I...I guess I wish I liked it more," she finished a little faintly._

_"Hmm...come to think of it, we've never even hugged before, have we?" Hurley tried a smile. "That's nuts, since I hug all my friends, including the ones I like way less than you."_

_Sloane scoffed lightly. "We've hugged."_

_"Yeah, but not an actual hug! You just throw one of your arms around my shoulders sometimes. That doesn't count."_

_Sloane rolled her eyes. "What, you want a quote-unquote real hug from me? What does that even mean anyway?"_

_"Like the one my mom gave you downstairs when you walked in. Both arms, big squeeze." In more of a mumble, she added, "If you want to, anyway. Only if you want."_

_Sloane watched her for a long moment out of the corner of her eye. Finally, she turned until her body faced Hurley. "I think 'want' is kind of a strong word, but I'm fine with it. Come at me."_

_Hurley waited instead. "You can pull away if you really want to, okay? I don't want you to be super uncomfortable for my sake."_

_"Do all of your hugs come with verbal contracts?"_

_"Just making sure we're clear," Hurley chuckled before she moved closer to Sloane._

_It was, predictably, awkward. She wasn't aware that it was possible to really be bad at hugging, but Sloane, quite frankly, was. She clearly wasn't used to it. She felt stiff and didn't have much of a grip and kept moving her hands around on Hurley's back, as though she wasn't sure where to rest them. It occurred to Hurley with a flush of hot embarrassment that this had probably been a bad idea. But she was committed now. She kept squeezing her._

_And, after awhile, something happened. It was as though the heat of their shared bodies had caused a thaw. Sloane let out a long, slow breath that tickled Hurley's ear as it blew past. The tension seemed to drain slowly out of her body with the exhale. She tightened her hold, just a little, and rested her chin lightly on Hurley's shoulder. Hurley, for her part, felt somehow like she could fall apart then and there. She found herself, almost unconsciously, nuzzling her forehead against Sloane's chest. She felt ready to slip into her, the two of them melting together._

_There was a coldness when they at last pulled slowly away that she hadn't noticed before. "That was...nice." Sloane spoke the last word slowly, as though she were suspicious of it. There was something sweet about the way she furrowed her brow, something true and rare. She looked bewildered, almost, and filled with wondering._

_"I'm glad," she murmured, and then, strangely, felt that she should say something else, although their silences had rarely ever been uncomfortable before._

_Thankfully, Sloane spoke up instead. "You know, uh, you said you'd braid my hair at some point." She was looking away from Hurley. Her dark locks fell over her cheeks as she stared down at the bed._

_"Oh! Yeah, I guess I did. I could do it now, if...if you wanted."_

_Sloane gave her a smile that could be seen through the curtain of her hair. "Yeah, I think I would."_

_"Probably just as well that I do it," Hurley said, positioning herself behind Sloane. "Tobias or Siobhan would probably try to do it for you if I didn't, but I'm the best at it. Don't tell them I said that, though. They can keep believing they're better than they are."_

_Sloane chuckled. "Yeah, actually, Siobhan mentioned something about styling my hair when I first came in."_

_"It's a halfling thing. In the old days, the braids you wore meant something about who you are. You could read the different patterns kind of like a code. That's still a thing in some places."_

_"Huh...but your hair's too short to braid."_

_"Well, yeah. I just got tired of trying to manage it when it was long. It would always frizz and look stupid. Sometimes I want to just shave the whole thing off for convenience."_

_"Really? But your curls are too cute."_

_Hurley froze with three strands of Sloane's hair between her increasingly sweaty fingers. Too cute. She blanked on the pattern that she was working on._

_Mercifully, the pause didn't last. Sloane blurted, "Anyway!" in a voice just loud enough to be startling--perhaps even with a bit of a stutter. "What I mean is I like your hair how it is now. The undercut makes you look like a big gay."_

_"Yeah it does," she responded with a growing grin. The tension began to ebb away, a little. "But yeah, everyone else in the family has long hair, so I've braided all of theirs."_

_"Yeah, you don't really look like them that much. None of them have your hair."_

_"Mom adopted all of us. Tamora and Tobias are blood-siblings, but that's it."_

_Sloane turned her head slightly, not enough so that she would mess up the braiding process, but enough so that Hurley could see her grin. "That's pretty cool."_

_"Yeah." She bit her lip. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you mention your family. What about your mom? If you have one, anyway."_

_"Ha, yeah, I'd bet that she's still alive and kicking somewhere out there," she answered with a quiet laugh. "I wouldn't know though. She sort of peaced out a couple years after I was born. I don't remember anything about her."_

_"I see. I'm sorry."_

_"Don't be." She shrugged a little. "Dad says it's because she was a human, that they never want to stick around, but I don't know about that." Looking back at Hurley, she flashed one of her playful smiles. "Either way, the reason I'm so bad is probably because I've got her blood."_

_Hurley stopped in the midst of tying off the braid. "You're joking, right?"_

_"No, seriously, my dad really thinks that."_

_"No, I mean, you don't actually think you're bad, do you?"_

_"Hurley, I don't exactly have the cleanest record. Yeah, no shit, I'm bad."_

_The thing that infuriated Hurley was not so much the words themselves, but the fact that, even with her back to Sloane, she could tell that they were spoken with a smile, the same lovely, tilted smile that she usually had. She said it as though she were announcing that the desert is hot. Hurley felt herself getting pissed at her, and also not actually pissed at her in the slightest, pissed on her behalf, pissed as hell at anyone who had ever so much as suggested that the beautiful girl with the dust on her jacket and her eyes on the horizon could ever be bad._

_She moved so that she was looking Sloane in the eye and then thwapped her right in the middle of the forehead._

_"Ah! Hey!" She rubbed the spot where she'd been smacked, though out of shock rather than pain. "You little shit! What was that for?"_

_"Asshole," Hurley grumbled, "you're good. Get it through your thick head."_

_For a moment, Sloane just looked at her open-mouthed. Then she shook her head. "I'm not gonna argue with you, crazy-ass." Hurley decided to take that as progress._

_They came down the stairs together a little later to find the family gathered in the living room. One by one, the kids turned to look at Sloane and, without failure, broke into giggles, until the room filled up with the sound._

_"What?" Sloane looked between each of them, confused. "What's funny?"_

_It didn't dawn on Hurley until that moment as she looked at Sloane. "Oh, uh..." She covered her mouth to cover up her growing flush and the laugh threatening to slip through her lips. "Um, you know how I said halflings use braids like a code?"_

_Sloane whipped around to her. "What did you do?"_

_"Well, I wasn't really thinking about it when I did your braids and I might've, uh...might've given you the pattern that means 'I'm a very young child and shouldn't be alone without an adult.'"_

_"Hey! Rude!"_

_"It wasn't on purpose, I swear!" She couldn't keep herself from snorting._

_From the other room, her mom called, "Guess we'll just have to be the ones to supervise you."_

_Sloane laughed at that, and Hurley turned to watch her. Standing at the periphery of the living room and seeing the family soaking up each other's company, a look of contentment made her glow, as though she were looking at a warm fire. Hurley decided that she should always look like that. "Hey," she murmured, "come on, let's sit with everyone else." She brushed the back of her hand faintly against Sloane's knuckles, and to her surprise, Sloane took it._

* * *

In her nightgown, with the skin under her eyes baggy with exhaustion, Hurley's mom stared at the two women in front of her with something like awe. Her gaze lingered on the one that she had taken in years ago, who had lived in her house for a not insignificant length of time. Sloane would not return her gaze. 

"Mom," Hurley said quietly. "I know it's late, but we need your help."

She looked between the two of them, disbelieving. "What are...why are you here? What's wrong?"

Briefly, Sloane met Hurley's eye. Then, reluctantly, she reached under her jacket and pulled out the raven mask that she had been concealing, the same one that had appeared on the "Wanted" signs that peppered every street in the city. 

Before, Eileen's expression had been confusion that teetered on the edge of joy. As she looked from Sloane to the mask, and as she slowly processed the circumstances that she had been presented with, she shifted into grim realization. 

"Come on," she said at last, her voice raw. "We need to talk."


	4. Chapter 4

 

_Like friction stopped existing the moment she revved the engine. Like the road was made of dry grass and she was a prairie fire. Like she was hungry. Like she grew bigger with every mile. Like she was chasing the sun so that it'd never turn to night on her. Like it was the end of the world._

_That was how Hurley liked to ride._

_A part of Sloane's mind--the loudest part, admittedly, and the most hedonistic--would have killed for the ride to never come to an end. The other part was cognizant of the motor nearly squealing as if in pain, and the hand-built bike rattling like it would fall apart at any moment, and the fact that the poor machine seldom ever got pushed this hard for this long._

_"Hey, you wanna ease up?" she shouted, but the oncoming wind chewed up her voice as soon as it left her throat. Hurley, sitting in front of her, remained hunched forward over the handlebars. She wrung the throttle like a dishrag. Sloane rolled her eyes but smiled. Or, rather, kept smiling. She'd been smiling the whole time, actually. The wind blew past her teeth and her mouth felt dry, but she didn't mind._

_She tapped Hurley, who jumped as though woken from a trance and at last proved she knew what a brake was. The sound of the bike quieted and turned less high-pitched as Hurley turned around to look at her. Her eyes were wide, not just with questioning, but with residual exhilaration. They took in the world and held it. They took in Sloane and held her, just for a moment, just long enough for her heart to knock forcefully against her ribs. Then she remembered what she was going to say. "Hey, you know, I admire your faith in my engineering, but this thing can only go down dirt roads at that speed for so long."_

_"Am I doing okay?" Hurley asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, went on, "That was fucking amazing! Did you see how fast I went around that curve a couple miles back? Don't you think I'm getting better at sharp turns?"_

_Sloane suppressed a giggle. "Yeah, I saw."_

_The bike had slowed to a stop by now. Hurley's hands dropped from the handlebars to grasp Sloane's, which were still loosely clasped around her waist. For an instant, Sloane's reflexes told her to pull away. She ignored them, in the way that she had been trying to do lately. Hurley's palm was hot and calloused against her skin._

_"I'm leaning into them a lot more, I think, like you said to." She kept lightly squeezing and releasing Sloane's fingers, restless. "I really feel the rhythm of it now. Hey, you know how Thunderbird Road has that one area with all those little hills? We should take the bike on that!"_

_"You really are gonna wreck this bike, aren't you?"_

_"Hey, you're supposed to be teaching me to ride! If I wreck it, it's on you," she laughed. Squeeze and release, and then she was back to gunning it. Sloane, in truth, was not being the best of teachers at the moment, in that her eyes were not on the road. Instead, they kept wandering to Hurley's bare, freckled shoulder. Something about the way the strong, tight muscle moved with every turn of the handlebars drew her._

_After they had been riding awhile, Sloane noticed the sinking sun's rays richen into the gold-tinged light of late afternoon. The shadows of the big stones they passed stretched out towards them. "You know where you're going?" she yelled over the engine. "Been riding awhile!"_

_"I got it!"_

_"Yeah, sure!"_

_"I do, though!" Hurley glanced back at her._

_She chuckled. "You get us lost and we're just gonna have to spend the night out here together!" She had meant for that to sound casual, joking, but it was hard to control her tone while screaming. She wondered if a note of excitement, or maybe desperation, had slipped in there unbidden. Hurley's mouth moved, but what she said drowned in the roar. "What?!"_

_Hurley whipped her head around. Strands of auburn hair tangled in her eyelashes. "I said--"_

_"Hey!" In the same instant that Sloane saw the fox dart in front of the wheels, she judged that they didn't have half the stopping distance they needed. She jumped out of her seat to reach over Hurley's body and wrench the handlebars to the side. The front wheel bumped as it left the road and the whole thing fishtailed just before it started to fall._

_She had tipped her bike before. Once, her leg had gotten caught under the weight of the metal and she had spent a gut-tangling few minutes as a bear-trapped animal before she twisted herself free. This time, she was quick enough to roll out of the way, burning her calf on the hot engine as she did. When she opened her squeezed eyelids, she was staring sideways at the still slowly turning front wheel, moving in midair like a hurt dog still trying to wag its tail. Bits of grit from the road pricked her cheek. She could imagine the spot beneath her eye skinned dark red._

_Shortly after realizing that she was not dead or close to it, she became aware of her arms still wrapped around another body, her chin resting on a patch of soft hair._

It's on you. 

_"Hurley?!" Her stomach lurched as though it had been punched from below. She pulled back to look over the girl in her arms._

_Bright as ever, Hurley's gaze fell on her.  Brown eyes flicked, searching her face, before they crinkled with a shaky, glorious smile. "Hey, I'm alright. Are you--?"_

_"Oh, thank fuck," she sighed. It sounded like the sort of prayer she hadn't spoken since she was nine. Relief drenched her like rain on a hot day. She could have kissed Hurley out of sheer joy._

_And in fact, she did._

_It was hardly a conscious choice. She was thinking about how unfathomably lucky it was that Hurley was alright and in the next moment she was tasting the sweat of the halfling's cheek on her lips._

_Hurley wasn't smiling anymore. Just blinking a lot._

_The tips of Sloane's ears burned so hot that she was sure she would combust at any moment. She hoped so, anyway._

_She did the only reasonable thing one could at a time like this. She laughed in Hurley's face. "Shit, sorry! Yeah, I'm good, but--"_

_"Did you just kiss me?"_

_Sloane could not have answer if she had wanted, but her expression must have said enough._

_"Sloane--"_

_"Sorry."_

_"No."_

_"No?"_

_"I-I mean..." Hurley shook her head a little, and some dust came loose. "You don't have to be sorry."_

_Her mind buzzed like a bad connection. "Oh," she said. Oh, she thought. "Then...then I'm not. Sorry."_

_"Good." Hurley stared at her face without quite meeting her gaze. "Hey, Sloane?"_

_"Yeah?" she answered, impressed with herself for being able to speak at all while unable to breathe._

_Hurley moved toward her a little, almost imperceptibly. Then she hesitated. Her eyes had begun to close, but they snapped open to search her again. For what? For nerves? For eagerness?_

_And just when Sloane thought she wouldn't, she closed the gap all at once._

_The way people always talked about love was fucking inane. Romance, at least the way people seemed to view it, was an invention made to sell dime-store novels to middle-aged mothers unhappy in their own marriages. Even as a young child, Sloane had rolled her eyes at the other little kids eating up fairytales, all of which described love in the same stupid way. The stories said that the simple act of mashing lips together would change worlds and worldviews. As if, what? One kiss and suddenly she would hear Fantasy Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" playing on the cosmic radio? The universe would turn so beautiful to her that for once it would seem like it was on her side? Only dupes believed that. She had decided that if there were truly anyone out there who could be so affected by something so small--who felt like they were among the clouds, or like there were butterfly wings beating against their guts, or like nothing would ever be wrong again--then that person must have been an unqualified sucker._

_Sloane discovered, upon kissing Hurley, that she was, in fact, a sucker._

_Hurley was hungry. When she came at Sloane, their noses bumped together. Hurley turned her head slightly so she could catch Sloane's lower lip in her mouth and, slowly, released, only to come back again. She took more of Sloane every time, wove the two of them together. Her kiss was an incoming tide, the waves going in and out but swallowing up more of the beach with every surge, inevitably taking it over. The halfling's breath was warm in her mouth and went down into her lungs and Hurley had her, Hurley had her, and it terrified Sloane to realize how badly she wanted to let it happen, to give herself up._

_It took several minutes for them to pull apart.  When they did, the break wasn't entire, their lips just barely brushing. Sloane felt Hurley's moving against her as she spoke. "Is this...is this what we're doing now?"_

_Sloane laughed quietly, if for no other reason than to give release to the bubbling joy that filled her chest. "I guess it is," she whispered._

_"Damn." Hurley broke into a brilliant smile, wide and dimpled and gods, she just wanted to taste those lips again. "If I'd known it'd be that easy I would've done something sooner."_

_"You could've just asked!"_

_"Well, you could've too!"_

_"Alright, well, we're both useless," Sloane replied, and by now they were both giggling, and kissed briefly over and over in between, when they had caught their breath enough._

_Sloane paused, then. "Hey, uh, we should probably stop lying on the side of a dirt road now."_

_"Yeah." But instead, they came together one last time, and Sloane would've been content to stay like that, bound up in her._

* * *

Hurley would not look at her. She stood against the wall while Sloane sat, across from her, at the table in Eileen's basement. Her brow was furrowed at the floor. 

"Let me see if I've got this right," Eileen said with a sigh, sitting next to Sloane. "You're indebted to the leader of a thieves' guild in Neverwinter and knew that he was planning to send people after you, so you ran. And you weren't sure how far his reach was, so you wanted to get as far away as you thought you could manage so you could start fresh, which was..."

"Here, yes." She glanced at the two other faces in the room, neither of which were turned towards her. She couldn't decide whether she would have preferred them looking at her. Putting aside the stress of confession, the room itself set her on edge. It felt like a simulacrum of itself, not quite the same without the bright buzz of family chatter that used to fill it up. Some pieces of furniture had been replaced since the last time she had been here, and while the new objects stuck out to her as odd and alien, Eileen and Hurley must have gotten accustomed to them a long time ago. She had lived here for over a year, when she was young, and now what she saw was at once strange and too familiar. 

"So you didn't come back for us," Eileen said quietly. It was not a question.

"I didn't say that. I went to see Hurley, didn't I?" The lack of response only made her swallow. She began to talk more quickly. "But I'm saying I'm back because I think I have a way I can get out of this, and if I could just--"

"You've behaved awfully." 

The words dropped onto the table like big black stones, heavily and without emotion. Eileen watched her with an unfeeling expression, lips in a thin line, until Sloane turned quickly to stare at her own clasped hands on the counter. They shook, barely. 

"You left us all of a sudden, with not much warning," she went on evenly. "Then you lost contact like you promised you wouldn't, and you just let us worry about you for years. You left us without a way to reach you. You didn't think we were important enough to let us know what happened to you. You've hurt everyone in this house, myself included, and Hurley especially. You've become a criminal, and you're only now coming back to us when you need help. You're risking us all getting in trouble because of you. You were selfish and stupid and uncaring towards us. And do you know what I think?"

Sloane stared silently at the swirls in the wooden counter. They dizzied her. She felt like throwing up. 

"Sloane."

"What?" she snapped back, too quickly and too loudly.

"I asked you a question."

"No, Eileen, I don't know what you think," she huffed. She felt like the same petulant teenager that she had been the last time she had set foot in this house. She wanted to run away now as badly as she had then. 

There was another beat. Then, slowly, the older woman reached her warm hand over to place it on Sloane's cheek. She turned the young woman's head so that the two could meet eyes. Then, gently, she placed her fingers beneath Sloane's chin and tilted her head upwards so that it didn't hang so much. Eileen's gaze stayed on her, who was left to blink in amazement.  

"I think that I know you," she murmured, "and I loved you when you left seven years ago, and I love the young woman you've become."

She stared and stared into the woman's single eye to try to find something, anything that would hint at dishonesty. But all she found was deep, deep blue. Its creased corners began to crinkle as Eileen gave her the slightest of smiles and Sloane struggled to choke back the bolus of a sob pushing up through her throat. 

"Alright," she said to Sloane, in the hushed way that one might talk to a hurt animal. "You're forgiven."

Had things stayed like that, Sloane might not have been able to keep herself from breaking. But it was at that moment that she heard, from the other end of the room, "She doesn't deserve that."

Her head snapped to Hurley, who still looked at the floor, her nose now slightly wrinkled as though disgusted. 

So there they were. The words she had never thought she would have to hear coming out of that particular mouth. 

At her rock-bottom, the stones were jagged stalagmites, and they stabbed her through the back all the way into her heart. 

"Hurley..." Eileen said in warning.

"She doesn't, Mom. She's barely apologized yet for--"

"If you've got something to say, Hurley," Sloane muttered darkly, "you can tell me directly." She had been pricked, and the anger sprung up out of her before she could choke it down. 

"Alright, I will." Hurley put her hands on the table and leaned towards Sloane, glaring. "When are you actually going to tell me why the fuck you were gone so long?"

"Hey, you're the one who left home first! You weren't always the best at answering letters either while you were gone, or did you decide to forget about that?"

"I was off training so I could join the militia!"

"Yeah, well, I hope protecting billionaires is everything you thought it was going to be."

"Sloane!" Eileen interjected, to no effect. 

Hurley looked struck for a moment, as though by a blow, then shook it off and came back fiercer. "I was actually doing something, Sloane, not fucking around--"

"Oh, because that's what I was doing, right?"

"Maybe you were and maybe you weren't! I don't know because you couldn't be fucked to tell us!"

The room shook with thunder as Eileen brought her fist down onto the table. "That's enough!"

Sloane was shaken enough by the noise that she did not react immediately when Hurley turned on her heel. She could only watch as the halfling disappeared swiftly up the stairs. 

There was a silence like the silence after a collision, the frozen aftermath of two objects with great momentum coming to a sudden halt. Sloane stared after Hurley, then, gradually, turned back to Eileen. The older woman was already looking at her and met her gaze instantly. She nodded in the direction in which Hurley had gone. She only needed to do it once, and both of them knew it. There was no point in Sloane debating. 

She found Hurley by the back door to the house. 

Outside, night was ebbing, reluctantly. The sky that had been saturated with black now looked washed out to dark gray. And while true daylight remained far off, the world was not so featureless as it had been in the dark. Hurley stood out against the surrounding dimness as she sat out on the doorstep, her hands clutching her shoulders. Even without showing her face, she looked tired. She was hunched a little, as if under something heavy. The soft wind nudged the curls on the top of her head out of place. 

She looked back as soon as she heard Sloane open the door. "I'm sorry," Hurley said before she had even stepped out. She opened her mouth as though to go on, then closed it and frowned, as though struggling with herself. She looked remorseful. That was almost infuriating. Of course she would be the one to apologize first, even though she had so much less to be sorry for. Of course she would make Sloane look like the shithead. Haltingly, she continued, "Look...what I said, back there, it wasn't...I wasn't trying to--"

"You're right."

Hurley turned at once to face her. "I...what?"

Sloane breathed in and gave a small shrug. "You're right," she repeated. The words had the bitter taste of something that she hadn't quite known to be true until she had said it aloud. "I shouldn't have bothered you. I...I've done nothing but made trouble for you by coming back here, and I don't deserve your help, and I'm sorry. I'll just leave. You'll only ever have to deal with me as the Raven again." She turned to walk away, intending to go around the house and through the side streets until she had reached her temporary hideout. Her hands were wrapped loosely around her belly. It felt like some awful thick sludgy substance had settled to the very bottom of her stomach to sicken her and that she would never be able to expel it, no matter how much she stuck her finger down her throat. 

"Wait." 

Sloane stopped, considered disobeying, and then turned around anyway. 

Hurley's eyes were wide, almost pleading. She sighed as she said quietly, "Mom was the one who was right, not me. We--I--never stopped caring about what happened to you. I tried, but I couldn't. If...if you're here to ask for help, then I'm going to help you."

Sloane kept her eyes on a tiny, flowering weed springing up along the wall. It was irrational, and ungrateful, but it pissed her off to hear that when she had done nothing to deserve it. 

"Just...sit down for a minute, okay?" Sloane did, feeling the coolness of the concrete through her clothes as she lowered herself onto the step. Neither of them looked at each other. Invisible to them, one or two birds, up before the rest, had begun to sing. She heard Hurley inhale deeply several times, as though in preparation to speak, only to sigh again. Finally, she mumbled, "You know...while you were gone, when I was waiting for your letters, I'd always try to keep a mental list of things I wanted to tell you about my life or ask about yours. I'd go over it in my head every day and try to memorize everything I'd added on. But...after the last time I got a letter from you, I waited so long that I ended up losing track of everything I wanted to say to you. I don't even know where to begin catching up."

The very fact that she was interested in catching up reignited hope, if faintly. Sloane caught her bottom lip in her teeth and chewed on the dry skin for a moment. "We could still try," she said slowly. "Like are you seeing anybody right now?"

Hurley shook her head a little. "Not at the moment."

"Well, I'm guessing you've been busy."

"Very." She flashed a small smile, though she still would not face Sloane. "How about you, though? You got a bit of a reputation. Must have women breaking down your door to get with a mysterious master thief."

"Get with me or arrest me, one or the other," she chuckled. "I've had some fun nights, yeah. Not much more than that, if I'm being perfectly honest." Quickly, she added, "You know, I can't go making connections with just anyone. Discretion and everything. It's hard to know who to trust."

"It is." Sloane didn't like the way Hurley looked at her while she said that. "I know what you mean about...things not lasting, I guess. I've had a few relationships, but even the more long-term ones always felt like it was just sort of nice, and there was nothing more to it than that. I don't know."

"No, I get it. Well, I assume you've got too much going on to do much dating, right? I mean, you've got your job and shit."

Hurley laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Meteoric rise through GCPD's ranks. That's what they say, right?"

"Something like that." Sloane cocked at eyebrow at her. "Why?"

"I..." She dug her short nails into the fabric of her pants. All at once, she blurted, "I feel like they made me a lieutenant for the headlines."

"Hey! Come on, that's bullshit and you know it. I'm positive you're damn good at what you do, and you deserved any promotion you--"

"I know," Hurley broke in. She whipped her head around to stare directly at Sloane. Her eyes flashed. "Believe me, I know. That's not the problem. I worked--work--my fucking ass off. When they were assigning me to all the dead-end cases and waiting to watch me fail, I solved them. I took in people they'd been hunting for months."

"So...why is it a problem that they made you lieutenant?"

"Because they spent years paying me peanuts and not listening when I gave advice on cases, suddenly promoted me, patted themselves on the back for giving Goldcliff its first halfling police lieutenant, and then promptly continued to not give a shit about me." Her elbows rested on her knees and her face was half-buried in her arms as she stared out darkly into the middle distance, eyes weary and shadowed with bags. "I have people nominally under my command who don't listen to me, and who keep operating the same shady way GCPD has been doing for years and accepting bribes from white-collar criminals in exchange for letting their shit slide and whatever the fuck, and I can't get them to stop because they don't actually give a shit about doing the right thing or about me." Her breathing had picked up in pace by the time she was done. 

"It's not what you'd hoped," Sloane murmured. 

Hurley dropped her forehead onto her arms and huffed. "I thought...all it was going to take was for people to see what I could do, and then they'd take me seriously and I'd be able to do some real good. Well, they've seen it." Suddenly she looked up and added quickly, "Don't tell anyone I said this, by the way. I mean, I don't know who you'd even have to tell, but still. I haven't even said all of this to Mom. I...I'm not sure why I dumped it on you just now." 

But they both knew why. Or at least Sloane thought she did. They were backsliding into old habits. This conversation was comfortable for them, and therefore it was dangerous.

"Hey, Hurley?" She waited for Hurley to look at her again and then said, with great gravity of tone, "Fuck 'em."

She glanced over, then snorted. The laugh was warm and genuine this time. "Thanks, Sloane."

The street lights flicked off silently. Some trace of blue had started to seep slowly into the lightening sky. 

There was a loud flapping, and suddenly a dark shape descended to settle in front of them. The raven, with jerky movements of its head, looked Sloane in the face and peered at her hands. She rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"

Hurley giggled. "They still remember you after all this time."

"Watch. It's cute now, but in a minute there's going to be twelve of them here all croaking at me for food." She looked over to find Hurley's gaze fixed on her again, a little wary. 

"You were going to tell me about the whole thief thing. How that got started."

"I did tell you. I needed money."

"Yeah, that's the obvious thing. I mean the whole persona and everything. Why you need to be so conspicuous."

Her molars groaned as she ground them together. She thought of how to answer as she watched the bird peck at the dry, gray ground, its large black beak coming away a little dustier every time. "People say they're shapeshifters," she muttered. 

"What?"

"Fuck, I don't know. That's the best way I can explain it. The Raven is good at what they do even if what they do is a shitty thing, and they're less of a fuck-up than I am. I like it when people just know me as that. I like that I can...change into that." She focused on keeping her voice steady. "You want the truth, right? About why I was silent all those years?"

"That's all I want."

She scraped at her hard, brittle cuticles until they began to separate from the nails. "You're going to think it's anticlimactic. Like I said before, I went traveling to see the world and try to live independent and whatever. But I fell into stealing to try to get by, and then it was more than just trying to get by, and...I really don't know." She didn't. After all this time, she still didn't know why she had done it, really. "I couldn't figure out how to tell you guys what I'd gotten myself into. Especially with you joining the militia and shit, actually doing something with your life. I didn't want you knowing. And then months went by, and then years, and I got it in my head you wouldn't have wanted to hear from me anyway. That's it. It's not even a good excuse."

Sloane finally managed to rip off a thin strip of skin from her fingers. She threw it to the ground at her feet. The bird flew away, then, beating into the sky steadily. They both watched it go until it had disappeared behind the buildings, then stared after it even once it was out of sight.

After a few moments, Hurley said softly, "Ravens are pretty family-oriented too, I hear. They don't stay alone forever." Sloane did not turn to look at her, but she kept on talking anyway. "And by the way, I think saying you're a fuck-up is a cop-out."

"No pun intended?"

"Shut up." But she was grinning. "What I mean is calling yourself a fuck-up makes it sound like that's all you are and you can't ever do better. What you are is a person who's fucked up in the past."

Sloane stood up and stretched, suddenly restless. "Listen, I've kept you out all night. You're probably due to go on patrol soon or whatever, and I don't wanna be around for that."

"If I were planning on arresting you, you would've been in a cell hours ago." 

She smiled. "I know. Still, I should get out of your hair pretty soon. Just one more thing I had to mention. The thing I need help with specifically."

Hurley raised her eyebrows at her. "Oh?"

"Hurley," she started, smirking, "do you remember when we used to watch the wagon races?"

"Yeah, of course." 

"And how you said you always thought one day you'd be out there on that track yourself?"

Hurley froze, then grimaced at her. She seemed less surprised than Sloane would've expected. "Fuck's sake, Sloane. That's your big plan for getting your life started in this city? Trying to get rich quick with racing money?"

"Hey, it'll be good for you too," she said with a small shrug. "I start supporting myself with the races and you'll have a lot fewer bank robberies to go investigating, yeah?"

"Somehow I doubt you'll quit stealing cold-turkey."

"Well, I didn't say that." She knelt in front of the halfling sitting on the step. Hurley looked at her for a moment, then cast her eyes to the side, lightly chewing the inside of her cheek. She was considering it, at least, thank the gods. A little sing-song, Sloane said, "Hurleyyyy, I know you've missed driving. You know I'm right."

Hurley's lips squirmed in the way they did when she was trying to keep them from breaking into a smile. But the mention of the open road had brought a light into her eyes that had nothing to do with the slow-rising sun. 

"We'd be great at it, you know," Sloane murmured. "The best ever. All we need is a wagon and some practice and we're as good as first-place. I know it. You're the only person I'd ever want as a partner in all this."

Hurley clenched and unclenched her fists nervously. Her jaw muscles moved, as though she were shifting the words around in her mouth and deciding whether or not to say them. Then, without warning, she turned to Sloane once more and declared, "Bold of you to assume I don't already have a wagon."

* * *

"Hurley. Holy fuck."

"It's not ready yet, obviously! It's barely more than a skeleton."

But to Sloane, standing in the tucked-away garage that Hurley had led her to, it was glorious. True, it was little more than a frame and an exposed engine glowing greenly with arcane energy, but it was, unmistakably, the beginnings of a battlewagon. "Hurley!" Her voice was almost a squeak as she shook the halfling's shoulder in delight. "This is so illegal for you to have!"

"Stop it!" she hissed, brushing Sloane's hand off. "I know that! I just...I missed the road and I wanted a project to work on to unwind. I wasn't gonna officially race it, just...drive around the desert or whatever. Don't get too excited."

"You want to though, don't you? Race, I mean. I know you do."

Hurley huffed. She knew Sloane was right. Sloane knew she knew Sloane was right. 

"We'll be fucking incredible," Sloane breathed. 

And she watched Hurley, who had been furrowing her eyes at the ground, slowly lift her head to look at her own contraption and smile. Sloane knew she was seeing all the possibilities of what the two of them could be as her eyes, turned fiery with the colors of the coming sunrise behind them, began to widen. 

Then, all of a sudden, Hurley's glance flitted over to Sloane. "We try this once," she warned. "One race. If it doesn't work out, I reserve to right to end this partnership and walk away. You understand."

"I understand fine, Hurley." She had a feeling one race was all it would take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fantasy Bruce Springsteen is a tiefling rogue/bard, in case you were wondering.
> 
> Also uhhhh many apologies for the wait on this chapter. I meant to have it up literally months ago but a number of life things, good and bad, ended up getting in the way. I hope at least the plot progression this time around somewhat makes up for it!
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who's clicked on this fic, especially those who have been keeping up with it since the earlier chapters. Y'all fucking rock.
> 
> Please consider commenting if you enjoyed it!


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